Login with Patreon
Cheryl Perera
Random Princesses
Masako Hojo
When her shogun husband cheated on her, she raised an army and destroyed the other woman's house. Later she deposed her incompetent son to become the first nun to rule Japan.
Theodora
Sex worker who became empress of the Byzantine Empire, and used her political power to safeguard her interests, and her…
Moll Cutpurse
Cross-dressing Queen of Thieves who flouted social norms and had plays written about her.
Manuela Sáenz
This revolutionary heroine of South America kept a pet bear, a disembodied moustache, and a lifestyle that defied every convention possible.
Sutematsu Oyama
The first Japanese woman to go to college didn't have a choice. But the experience changed her - and she changed Japan in return.
Emmy Noether
Revolutionized the field of mathematics, yet was persecuted for being Jewish and paid a pittance for her visionary teaching work.
Benazir Bhutto
The exiled daughter of a deposed ruler, she could have been a fairytale bridge between worlds - but fairy tales are not real. Benazir, whose name means "without flaw," was anything but.
Fredegund
Possibly the most cartoonishly evil woman to have ever existed, this Merovingian queen was an endless source of assassination attempts - including, on one memorable occasion, her own young daughter.
Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti
Through years of unrelenting protest, this Nigerian teacher felled a king, won women the right to vote, and taught all of Africa how to protest.
Ada Lovelace
History's first computer programmer, who invented algorithms for the first computer - which didn't even exist during her lifetime, so…