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Story: Downer
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Truganini
The "Last of the Aboriginal Tasmanians" (she wasn't) used brains, brawn, and sheer will to carve a place for herself, even as the world was collapsing around her.
Toregene Khatun
Although her tribe was destroyed and she was forced into an unwanted marriage, this indomitable woman came to run the world's largest empire - with a woman as her companion.
Takeko Nakano
When the end of an era was at hand, this samurai woman refused to go gently.
Pailadzo Captanian
After escaping the Armenian Genocide (by walking across the Syrian desert while pregnant), this woman went back into Armenia to rescue her sons, then made her way to America -- where she invented the recipe for Rice-a-Roni.
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.
Marsha P. Johnson
This cheery godmother of trans civil rights masked a dark past of abuse.
Marguerite de la Rocque
Stranded by her cruel relative on an abandoned Canadian island (literally named the Isle of Demons), she survived for two years by hunting animals and eventually made it back to France.
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.
Anacaona
When Columbus and his crew ravaged her land, this native Haitian poet gave all to keep the peace.
Cut Nyak Dhien
When her (second) rebel husband was killed, this heroine of Indonesian revolution took over the fight against the Dutch.
Random Princesses
Madam C.J. Walker
America's ostensible first female self-made millionaire was a black beauty magnate who did it all for her daughter.
Mary Seacole
One half of the odd couple of Crimean nursing - the jolly black businesswoman who swore by folk remedies, in stark contrast to Florence Nightingale's by-the-book Victorian approach to medicine.
Mkabayi kaJama
One of the most powerful women in Zulu history, this cursed princess did what was necessary to protect the realm.
Sojourner Truth
When her kid was stolen from her, this ex-slave successfully sued to get him back; she then went on to become a forceful speaker for abolition across the United States.
Thákane
When her deadbeat brothers demanded the impossible, this South African princess carried through, and slayed a dragon.
Sister Rosetta Tharpe
The godmother of rock and roll, this black bisexual singer fused gospel and pop to blaze her own way across the Jim Crow-era south.
Jezebel
Roundly-despised and unfairly-maligned seductress of the bible who ran afoul of the wrong priests.
Tatterhood
This goat-riding, spoon-wielding princess fought trolls to save her sister.
Christine de Pizan
When her husband unexpectedly died, she rolled up her sleeves and became one of the greatest authors of the age to keep food on the table. She wrote passionate defenses of her gender (and military treatises!) that were centuries ahead of their time.
Princess Pyeonggang
This princess held her father to his word in the most unexpected way: by demanding to marry the stupidest man in Korea.