Rejected Princesses | History That's More Than 2-Dimensional.

History That's More Than 2-Dimensional.

Theodora (c.497-548)

The Concubine Who Conquered Constantinople

Sex worker who became empress of the Byzantine Empire, and used her political power to safeguard her interests, and her husband’s reputation.

Tomoe Gozen (c.1157-1247)

The Samurai Who Made Samurai Flee

Fearsome undefeated samurai warrior who was “a match for any god or demon,” and is one of Japan’s greatest heroines to this day.

Collection: Mothers >

Vitka Kempner

Spy, smuggler, saboteur, partisan: this Jewish woman refused to go like a lamb to the slaughter, and fought the Nazis tooth and nail... even after the war, when she, alongside others, poisoned thousands of Nazi POWs in a revenge plot.

Soraya Tarzi

1920s Afghanistan was a progressive and rapidly-modernizing country in large part to the most powerful, empathic, and maligned queen it had ever seen.

Trinidad Tecson

Turned into a revolutionary in middle age, this mother became one of the Philippines most heralded women.

Xtabay (Mesoamerican myth)

Siren of the Yucatan

Chaste and virtuous woman spends life assuming she’s better than her more sex-positive neighbor, and for this haughtiness becomes in death a demonic woman who lures wayward men to their death – a stunning indigenous inversion of the Madonna/whore complex.

Nanny of the Maroons (c.1680-1750)

The Mother of Us All

Led colony of escaped slaves and protected them from the English using borderline supernatural abilities.

Nana Asma’u (1793-1864)

The Princess Who Loved Learning

Massively educated princess who started all-female gang of itinerant teachers, who would roam the land and educate unsuspecting passersby.

Collection: Women of STEM >

Annie Jump Cannon

This astronomer threw off all the social conventions of her day to pursue her one true calling: the stars.

Zelia Nuttall

This single mom developed the field of Mexican archaeology, while fiercely protecting it from the sleazy and opportunistic.

Hester Stanhope

100 years before Lawrence of Arabia, this British woman traveled the Middle East by herself, surviving shipwrecks, plagues, and Bedouin attacks in the process.

Chiyome Mochizuki (16th century)

The Widow Who Ran a Ninja Academy

Recruited widows, orphans, and prostitutes into an all-woman ninja spy group, the largest in Asia at the time.

Josefina Guerrero (1918-1996)

Leper Spy of the Philippines

Let her leprosy go untreated for years to make herself the perfect spy in the Japan-occupied Philippines - soldiers wouldn't touch her, so she could slip right through.

Mary Lacy (1740-1801)

The First Female Shipwright

This self-described “undutiful daughter” posed as a man to become the world’s first female shipwright.

Collection: Spies >

Virginia Hall

This "most dangerous of all spies" staged daring mountaintop escapes, prison breaks, and railway bombings -- all on her trusty wooden leg, codenamed "Cuthbert."

Noor Inayat Khan

Pacifist Indian princess who gave up everything of herself to hold the line in occupied Paris during World War 2.

Manuela Sáenz

This revolutionary heroine of South America kept a pet bear, a disembodied moustache, and a lifestyle that defied every convention possible.

Nwanyeruwa (Early 20th century)

Instigator (and Peacekeeper) of the Igbo Women's War

Instigated a massive "women's war" against British taxation, the effect of which was one part protest movement, one part comedy roast, and one part block party.

Pope Joan (9th century)

The Pope Who Gave Birth

This pope was largely assumed to be male until she gave birth in the midst of a procession - and largely assumed to be factual until the 13th century.

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Women in Combat

Women warriors are not new

Aligned projects get the RP treatment