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Marie Curie

Marie Curie, née Maria Sklodowska, was born in Warsaw on November 7, 1867, the daughter of a secondary-school teacher. She received a general education in local schools and some scientific training from her father. She became involved in a students' revolutionary organization and found it prudent to leave Warsaw, then in the part of Poland dominated by Russia, for Cracow, which at that time was under Austrian rule. In 1891, she went to Paris to continue her studies at the Sorbonne where she obtained Licenciateships in Physics and the Mathematical Sciences. She met Pierre Curie, Professor in the School of Physics in 1894 and in the following year they were married. She succeeded her husband as Head of the Physics Laboratory at the Sorbonne, gained her Doctor of Science degree in 1903, and following the tragic death of Pierre Curie in 1906, she took his place as Professor of General Physics in the Faculty of Sciences, the first time a woman had held this position. She was also appointed Director of the Curie Laboratory in the Radium Institute of the University of Paris, founded in 1914.

Mother Teresa

Mother Teresa was born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu in Skopje*, Macedonia, on August 27, 1910. Her family was of Albanian descent. At the age of twelve, she felt strongly the call of God. She knew she had to be a missionary to spread the love of Christ. At the age of eighteen she left her parental home in Skopje and joined the Sisters of Loreto, an Irish community of nuns with missions in India. After a few months' training in Dublin she was sent to India, where on May 24, 1931, she took her initial vows as a nun. From 1931 to 1948 Mother Teresa taught at St. Mary's High School in Calcutta, but the suffering and poverty she glimpsed outside the convent walls made such a deep impression on her that in 1948 she received permission from her superiors to leave the convent school and devote herself to working among the poorest of the poor in the slums of Calcutta. Although she had no funds, she depended on Divine Providence, and started an open-air school for slum children. Soon she was joined by voluntary helpers, and financial support was also forthcoming. This made it possible for her to extend the scope of her work.

Elizabeth I

Elizabeth I - the last Tudor monarch - was born at Greenwich on 7 September 1533, the daughter of Henry VIII and his second wife, Anne Boleyn. Her early life was full of uncertainties, and her chances of succeeding to the throne seemed very slight once her half-brother Edward was born in 1537. She was then third in line behind her Roman Catholic half-sister, Princess Mary. Roman Catholics, indeed, always considered her illegitimate and she only narrowly escaped execution in the wake of a failed rebellion against Queen Mary in 1554.
Elizabeth succeeded to the throne on her half-sister's death in November 1558. She was very well-educated (fluent in six languages), and had inherited intelligence, determination and shrewdness from both parents. Her 45-year reign is generally considered one of the most glorious in English history. During it a secure Church of England was established. Its doctrines were laid down in the 39 Articles of 1563, a compromise between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism. Elizabeth herself refused to 'make windows into men's souls ... there is only one Jesus Christ and all the rest is a dispute over trifles'; she asked for outward uniformity.

Indira Gandhi

Indira Gandhi (1917-1984) was the only child of Kamla and Jawaharlal Nehru. She spent part of her childhood in Allahabad, where the Nehrus had their family residence, and part in Switzerland, where her mother Kamla convalesced from her periodic illnesses. She received her college education at Somerville College, Oxford. A famous photograph from her childhood shows her sitting by the bedside of Mahatma Gandhi, as he recovered from one of his fasts; and though she was not actively involved in the freedom struggle, she came to know the entire Indian political leadership. After India's attainment of independence, and the ascendancy of Jawaharlal Nehru, now a widower, to the office of the Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi managed the official residence of her father, and accompanied him on his numerous foreign trips. She had been married in 1942 to Feroze Gandhi, who rose to some eminence as a parliamentarian and politician of integrity but found himself disliked by his more famous father-in-law, but Feroze died in 1960 before he could consolidate his own political forces.

Anna Eleanor Roosevelt

Ashy, awkward child, starved for recognition and love, Eleanor Roosevelt grew into a woman with great sensitivity to the underprivileged of all creeds, races, and nations. Her constant work to improve their lot made her one of the most loved--and for some years one of the most revered--women of her generation.
She was born in New York City on October 11, 1884, daughter of lovely Anna Hall and Elliott Roosevelt, younger brother of Theodore. When her mother died in 1892, the children went to live with Grandmother Hall; her adored father died only two years later. Attending a distinguished school in England gave her, at 15, her first chance to develop self-confidence among other girls.

AUNG SAN SUU KYI

La detención de Suu Kyi ha causado fuertes criticas por la comunidad internacional.
El Departamento de Estado estadounidense informó que la líder pro democracia birmana, Aung San Suu Kyi, comenzó una huelga de hambre en protesta por su detención, llevada a cabo hace varios meses por la dictadura militar.
Desde mayo, Aung San Suu Kyi, permanece incomunicada.
El Departamento de Estado manifestó profunda preocupación por la seguridad y bienestar de la líder pro democracia y ha reiterado su petición para que sea liberada de inmediato.
El secretario general de la Organización de Naciones Unidas (ONU), Kofi Annan, advirtió el pasado mes a las autoridades de Birmania que la comunidad internacional les responsabilizaría por cualquier cosa que pudiera ocurrirle a Aung San Suu Kyi.
El gobierno birmano ha esgrimido que se trata de una detención preventiva, acometida con el fin de evitar que se repitan enfrentamientos como el que los seguidores de Suu Kyi y los del gobierno sostuvieron a finales de mayo.
¿Democracia sin Auu Kyi?
Líderes de oposición afirman que la militante pro democracia ha sido suplida de ropa, libros y medicinas.
Este sábado, el nuevo primer ministro birmano, general Khin Nyunt, dijo que el gobierno reiniciará una convención nacional para escribir una nueva constitución.
La noticia de la huelga de hambre se supo justo luego que el gobierno birmano anunció su propio plan de transición para retornar hacia la democracia.
El partido de Aung Saan Auu Kyi, Liga Nacional para la Democracia, ganó las últimas elecciones, en 1990, pero el estamento militar se negó a hacer la transmisión de mando.

Emmeline Pankhurst

Emmeline Pankhurst (July 4, 1858 – June 14, 1928) was one of the founders of the British suffragette movement. It is the name of "Mrs Pankhurst", more than any other, which is associated with the struggle for the enfranchisement of women in the period immediately preceding World War I.
She was born Emmeline Goulden in Manchester, England to abolitionist Robert Goulden and feminist Sophia Crane, and married Richard Marsden Pankhurst, a barrister, in Salford in 1879. Richard Pankhurst was already a supporter of the women's suffrage movement, and had been the author of the Married Women's Property Acts of 1870 and 1882.

Joan of Arc

Joan of Arc was born to Jacques d'Arc and Isabelle Romée in Domrémy, a village which was then in the duchy of Bar (and later annexed to the province of Lorraine and renamed Domrémy-la-Pucelle). Her parents owned about 50 acres (0.2 square kilometers) of land and her father supplemented his farming work with a minor position as a village official, collecting taxes and heading the local watch. They lived in an isolated patch of northeastern territory that remained loyal to the French crown despite being surrounded by Burgundian lands. Several local raids occurred during her childhood and on one occasion her village was burned.
Joan said she was about nineteen at her trial, so she was born about 1412; she later testified that she experienced her first vision around 1424. She would report that St. Michael, St. Catherine, and St. Margaret told her to drive out the English and bring the Dauphin to Reims for his coronation.
At the age of sixteen she asked a kinsman, Durand Lassois, to bring her to nearby Vaucouleurs where she petitioned the garrison commander, Count Robert de Baudricourt, for permission to visit the royal French court at Chinon. Baudricourt's sarcastic response did not deter her. She returned the following January and gained support from two men of standing: Jean de Metz and Bertrand de Poulengy. Under their auspices she gained a second interview where she made a remarkable prediction about a military reversal near Orléans.

Margarent Thatcher’s Eulogy for Ronald Reagan

Ronald Reagan’s life was rich not only in public achievement, but also in private happiness. Indeed, his public achievements were rooted in his private happiness. The great turning point of his life was his meeting and marriage with Nancy.
On that we have the plain testimony of a loving and grateful husband: `Nancy came along and saved my soul’. We share her grief today. But we also share her pride - and the grief and pride of Ronnie’s children.
For the final years of his life, Ronnie’s mind was clouded by illness. That cloud has now lifted. He is himself again - more himself than at any time on this earth. For we may be sure that the Big Fella Upstairs never forgets those who remember Him. And as the last journey of this faithful pilgrim took him beyond the sunset, and as heaven’s morning broke, I like to think - in the words of Bunyan - that `all the trumpets sounded on the other side’.
We here still move in twilight. But we have one beacon to guide us that Ronald Reagan never had. We have his example. Let us give thanks today for a life that achieved so much for all of God’s children.”

EVERY WOMEN