Grace Hopper was born on December 9, 1906 in New York City. At a very young age she showed an interest in engineering, often taking apart household goods and putting them back together. She was named a distinguished fellow of the British Computer Society, then the first person from the U.S. and first woman from any country to hold the title.
Margaret Mead was a cultural anthropologist born on December 16, 1901 in Philadelphia. Between 1925 and 1939, she studied seven cultures in the South Pacific and Indonesia, focusing on the relationship between the individual and culture.
Born in 1799, Mary Anning was a pioneering paleontologist and fossil collector. Her father, Richard Anning, was a cabinet maker and amateur fossil collector. He taught her as well as her brother, Joseph, how to look for and clean fossil specimens — a skill they later relied on to support the family.
Lise Meitner was born in Vienna, Austria. She developed an interest in physics and was the first woman admitted to the physics lectures and laboratories at the University of Vienna. Through written correspondences, she continued her collaboration with Otto Hahn in determining whether a uranium atom could be split… the discovery of fission.
On a clear and sunny day aboard Vosktok 6 on July 16, 1962, Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman to travel to space. She was born in Maslennikovo, Russia on March 6, 1937. She'd later be elected as deputy to the Supreme Soviet, become president of the Soviet Women’s Committee and addressed the Women’s International Democratic Federation in Helsinki where the theme of the meeting was “The Role of Women in the Modern World.”
