Ten Important Women of the Century
"The other day I dreamed that I was at the gates of heaven. And St Peter said, 'Go back to Earth, there are no slums up here'."
The angel of Calcutta, was born in Skopje in what is now Yugoslavia on August 27, 1910. She was born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu she came to Calcutta as a teacher in 1929. However, it was in 1946 on train to Darjeeling she got a "call form within" and from that day on she served the poor like no other and eventually won the Nobel Prize in Peace 1979 but above all came to be known simply as the Mother.
"...the time will come when we'll be people again and not just Jews!"
She died in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp at the age of 15. She spent her last years in hiding in the annex of a building Holland. But the chronicles she kept of those days has made her one of the best known person of the World War II.
"I knew then that water meant the wonderful cool something that was flowing over my hand. That living word awakened my soul, gave it light, hope, joy, set it free!"
Helen Keller was born a healthy child on June 27, 1880 in Tuscumbia, Alabama. In 1882, Helen was left deaf, blind, and mute by an illness diagnosed as brain fever that may have been scarlet fever. It caused Helen to enter what she later described as a "no world" --a dark and silent world devoid of human communication. From then on she went on to change the lives of every blind person in the world...
When Mrs. Roosevelt came to the White House in 1933, she understood social conditions better than any of her predecessors and she transformed the role of First Lady accordingly. She never shirked official entertaining; she greeted thousands with charming friendliness. She also broke precedent to hold press conferences, travel to all parts of the country, give lectures and radio broadcasts, and express her opinions candidly in a daily syndicated newspaper column, "My Day."
After President Roosevelt's death on April 12, 1945, Mrs. Roosevelt continued public
life. She was appointed by President Truman to the United States Delegation to the United
Nations General Assembly, a position she held until 1953. She was chairman of the Human
Rights Commission during the drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which
was adopted by the General Assembly on December 10, 1948.
Civil rights activist; born in Tuskagee, Ala. After briefly attending Alabama State University, she married and settled in Montgomery, Ala., where by
1955 she was working as a tailor's assistant in a department store. On that dark December day in 1955, Mrs. Parks' only intent was to get home after a long day of work as a seamstress. But when a white man got on the bus and the driver ordered the black people in her row in the "colored section" to move to the rear, she refused. She eventually earned recognition as the "mother" of the civil rights revolution.
"Her many achievements will be appreciated more as time goes on."
- Ronald Reagan
Mrs. Margaret Thatcher was Britain's first woman Prime Minister. She was appointed Prime Minister, First Lord of the Treasury and Minister for the Civil Service in 1979, following the success of the Conservative Party in the general election the previous day. She remained the Prime Minister till 1990. Steering Britain through the Falkland wars.
Marie Curie is the most famous woman of physics. She has been recognized for her work with Nobel Prize awards in both physics (1903) and chemistry (1911). She died in 1934 of leukemia, thought to have been brought on by her extensive exposure to the high levels of radiation involved in her studies.
The tragic death of Diana, Princess of Wales occurred on Sunday, 31 August 1997 following a car accident in Paris, France. And the whole world came together in grieving the peoples princess.
"Please know I am quite aware of the hazards...I want to do it because I want to do it. Women must try to do things as men have tried. When they fail their failure must be but a challenge to others."
Amelia Mary Earhart was born on July 24, 1897 at her grandparents' home in Atchison, Kansas. And in May 20, 1932, exactly 5 years after the Lindbergh flight, Amelia's modified Lockheed Vega began the journey across the Atlantic. Wit this flight she opened up many new vistas for women. She disappeared over the Pacific on June 29, 1937 and her body was never found but her spirit lives on.
"To aid life, leaving it free, however, to unfold itself, that is the basic task of the educator."
During her lifetime, Dr. Montessori was acknowledged as one of the world's leading educators. Education moved beyond Maria Montessori, adapting only those elements of her work that fit into existing theories and methods. However, today there is a growing consensus among psychologists and developmental educators that many of her ideas were decades ahead of their time.
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