Today, March 8, 2017, is International Women’s Day. Google featured 13 excellent women on the Google Doodle to honor this day. Here is a little bit on information about each of them:
1. Ida B. Wells
Ida B. Wells was a Civil Rights activist and journalist. She was born a slave in 1862, and freed just six months later after the Emancipation Proclamation. She led the first anti-lynching campaign.
2. Lotfia El Nadi
This awesome lady was Egypt’s first female aviator. Her 110th birthday will be in October. She was the first woman to ever fly a plane solo from Cairo to Alexandria. She was only the second woman to ever fly solo, the first one being Amelia Earhart.
3. Frida Kahlo
Frida Kahlo was a wonderful artist, and she was married to fellow artist Diego Rivera. He said this about her work:
“I recommend her to you, not as a husband but as an enthusiastic admirer of her work, acid and tender, hard as steel and delicate and fine as a butterfly’s wing, lovable as a beautiful smile, and as profound and cruel as the bitterness of life.”
4. Lina Bo Bardi
This lovely lady was a Brazilian architect. She moved to Milan, Italy after she graduated from college. She was also involved with scenery, art, and more. She had many unfinished projects when she died.
https://twitter.com/eguas_doido/status/839460054218731520
5. Olga Skorokhodova
Olga Skorokhodova was a deaf blind researcher. Her research the development of deaf blind children shaped our current understanding of child development in disabled children.
6. Miriam Makeba
The South African singer, Miriam Makeba, introduced Xhosa and Zulu music to Western audiences. She won a Grammy in 1965 for best folk recording. Here she is singing one of her famous songs, “Pata Pata:”
7. Sally Ride
Sally Ride was the first American woman in space. She became an astronaut in 1977 when she replied to the NASA ad in the newspaper. She helped put satellites into space.
8. Halet Cambel
Halet Cambel was a Turkish fencer who was the first Muslim woman to compete in the Olympics. She was in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, and she managed to piss off Adolf Hitler in the process. She said this about it later in life:
“Our assigned German official asked us to meet Hitler. We actually would not have come to Germany at all if it were down to us, as we did not approve of Hitler’s regime. We firmly rejected her offer.”
9. Ada Lovelace
Ada Lovelace, was a very gifted mathematician and she gave birth to the concept we now know as computer programming. She showed an aptitude for math at an early age, and her parents hired tutors. She wrote descriptions of how code could be written to solve math problems and do other calculations.
10. Rukmini Devi
Rukmini Devi, was an Indian dancer and choreographer. She helped create the form of Indian dance known as Sadhir. She established a dance studio with her husband in the 1910s.
11. Cecilia Grierson
Cecilia Grierson was an Argentinian doctor and Freethinker. She was a big advocate for women’s rights in Argentina. She was one of the few women who were even allowed to go to college.
12. Lee Tai-Young
Lee Tai-Young was Korea’s first female lawyer and first female judge. She also founded the first legal aide center. She famously said:
“No society can or will prosper without the cooperation of women.”
13. Suzanne Lenglen
Suzanne Lenglen was a famous tennis player in the 1920s. As the Telegraph reported:
“… Lenglen, a brandy-sipping, uninhibited Parisian prima donna who was prone to weeping on court, dominated women’s tennis from the end of the First World War until 1927.”
These lovely women all deserve to be featured on Google today. Happy International Women’s Day everyone.
Featured image via Twitter.