Florence Nightingale
Random Princesses

Amaridevi
To ensnare the scheming ministers who were ruining her life, this princess used guile, cunning, and a sophisticated knowledge of civil engineering.

Mercadera
When this Spanish merchant went out to pick cabbages, she stumbled upon an unusual kind of pest: a French knight.

Jackie Mitchell
In 1931, a seventeen-year-old girl struck out Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig in front of a crowd of thousands -- and then was benched into obscurity.

Penta
When her brother of this fairytale princess decided to marry her, she warded him off by cutting off her own hands. Then she gave birth to a dog. It got weirder after that.

Freydís Eiríksdóttir
When attacked by Native Americans, this pregnant viking bared her chest, brandished a sword, and took them on by herself. And she won.

Sarah Biffin
Born without arms or legs, this artist learned to write, sew, and paint with her mouth - and came to work for kings and queens.

Amba/Sikhandi
When this princess had her life ruined by an unstoppable warrior, she: became a fervent ascetic for years and got a divine boon; killed herself to reincarnate faster; came back as a man; and killed the man who'd wronged her, in the stunning climax of the world's longest epic poem.

Takeko Nakano
When the end of an era was at hand, this samurai woman refused to go gently.

Kate Shelley
To save an oncoming passenger train, this 15-year-old girl climbed across a collapsing bridge, with nothing but flashes of lightning to keep her from falling to her death in the flooding river below -- a river that had already killed her father.

Tsuruhime Ohori
When invaders threatened her island home, she declared herself a living god, raised an army, and fought them tooth, nail, and occasional grenade.