Wangari Maathai founded the Green Belt Movement in 1977 and mobilized poor women to plant nearly 30 million trees. She was the first woman from Africa honored with the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004 and the first woman in East and Central African to earn a doctorate degree.
The 1950s marked the beginning of a time described as a space race between the U.S. and Russia. On July 16, 1963 aboard Vosktok 6, Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman to travel to space, completing 48 orbits around Earth. She became president of the Soviet Women’s Committee and addressed the Women’s International Democratic Federation.
Considered one of the greatest writers in the United States, Maya Angelou was the first African-American to work on the streetcars in San Francisco. She was the first African-American woman to recite her poetry at a U.S. presidential inauguration, the first African-American women to make the non-fiction bestseller’s list, the first African-American woman to have an original screenplay produced for the movie Georgia, Georgia in 1972.
Helen Keller lost her vision and became mute February 1882. She worked on behalf of the blind, campaigning that the major cause of blindness in infants was a condition called ophthalma neonatarum.
Cleopatra ruled an empire that included Egypt, Cyprus, part of modern-day Libya and other territories in the Middle East. She first ascended the throne in 51 B.C. with her brother Ptolemy XIII as co-monarch. Following her return to Alexandria at 21-years-old, her surviving half-brother, Ptolemy XIV, was elevated to the position of pharaoh at about age 12. She was the first Ptolemaic queen with her head and name minted on coins.
