María Corazón Sumulong Cojuangco–Aquino (born January 25, 1933), widely known as Cory Aquino, was President of the Philippines from 1986 to 1992. She was Asia's first female President. She was the wife of the popular opposition senator Benigno Aquino Jr., and when he was assassinated at then Manila International Airport on his return from exile on August 21, 1983, she became the focus of the opposition to the autocratic rule of President Ferdinand Marcos. Maria Corazón Sumulong Cojuangco was

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Wu Zetian (武則天 pinyin : Wǔ Zétiān) (625 - December 16, 705), personal name Wu Zhao (武曌), was the only female emperor in the history of China, founding her own dynasty, the Zhou (周), and ruling under the name Emperor Shengshen (聖神皇帝) from 690 to 705. Her rise and reign has been criticized harshly by Confucian historians but has been viewed under a different light after the 1950s. Her family

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Elizabeth was born at 17 Bruton Street in Mayfair, London on 21 April 1926. Her father was The Prince Albert, Duke of York (later King George VI), the second eldest son of King George V and Queen Mary. Her mother was The Duchess of York (née Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon), the daughter of Claude George Bowes-Lyon, 14th Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne and his wife, the Nina Cecilia Cavendish-Bentinck, the Countess of Strathmore and Kinghorne. She was baptised in the Mu

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(Laura) Jane Addams (September 6, 1860-May 21, 1935) won worldwide recognition in the first third of the twentieth century as a pioneer social worker in America, as a feminist, and as an internationalist. She was born in Cedarville, Illinois, the eighth of nine children. Her father was a prosperous miller and local political leader who served for sixteen years as a state senator and fought as an officer in the Civil War; he was a friend of Abraham Lincoln whose letters to him began «My Dear D

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Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, LG, OM, PC, FRS (born 13 October 1925) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990. She was the longest serving British Prime Minister in the 20th century, the longest since Gladstone, and had the longest continuous period in office since Lord Liverpool. She is also the only woman to be Prime Minister or elected leader of a major political party in the UK and, with Margaret Beckett, is one of only two wome

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Golda Meir (Hebrew: גּוֹלְדָּה מֵאִיר (help·info)) (born Golda Mabovitz; May 3, 1898 – December 8, 1978) was one of the founders of the State of Israel. Meir served as the Minister of Labor, Foreign Minister, and as the fourth Prime Minister of Israel from March 17, 1969 to June 3, 1974. Golda Meir was the "Iron Lady" of Israeli politics years before the epithet

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Indira Priyadarshini Gandhi (Hindi: इन्दिरा प्रियदर्शिनी गान्धी) (November 19, 1917 – October 31, 1984) was Prime Minister of India from January 19, 1966 to March 24, 1977, and again from January 14, 1980 until her assassination on October 31, 1984. Daughter of India's first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, and mother of

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The Empress Dowager Cixi (Chinese: 慈禧太后; pinyin: Cíxǐ Tàιhòu; Wade-Giles: Tz'u-hsi) (November 29, 1835 –November 15, 1908), popularly known in China as the Western Empress Dowager (西太后), and officially known posthumously as Empress Xiaoqin Xian (孝欽顯皇后), was a powerful and charismatic figure who was the de facto ruler of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, ruling over China for most of the

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Queen Liliʻuokalani of Hawaiʻi (September 2, 1838 – November 11, 1917), originally named Lydia Kamakaʻeha, also known as Lydia Kamakaʻeha Paki, with the chosen royal name of Liliʻuokalani, and later named Lydia K. Dominis, was the last monarch of the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi. On September 16, 1862, she married John Owen Dominis, who became Governor of Oʻahu and Maui. They had no children; Liliʻuokalani's heiress for several ye

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Catherine II of Russia, called the Great (Russian: Екатерина II Великая or Yekaterina II Velikaya, 2 May 1729 — 6 November [O.S. 17 November] 1796), born Sophie Augusta Fredericka of Anhalt-Zerbst) — sometimes referred to as an epitome of the "enlightened despot" — reigned as Empress of Russia for more than three decades, from June 28, 1762 until her death. Early life

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