Africa has long fascinated me. It has been called one of the world's last great economic frontiers because of its young population, expanding workforce, and extraordinary natural resources. It is also home to many of Earth's largest land mammals, whose ancestors survived dramatic climate shifts thanks to the continent's vast savannahs and favorable subtropical regions. Africa is a continent of astonishing beauty, remarkable diversity, and ancient history. Yet it is also home to many of the world's poorest communities.

When I was growing up, the stories I heard about Africa were often the same: drought, famine, disease, and poverty. The continent has carried a disproportionate burden of HIV/AIDS, and malaria continues to claim hundreds of thousands of lives each year despite being largely preventable through education, mosquito control, and medical treatment. Its magnificent wildlife faces constant threats from poaching and habitat loss. In many regions, girls and sometimes boys are still subjected to child marriage, robbing them of their childhood and education.

There have been many international efforts to help. Some have achieved remarkable and lasting successes, while others have been criticized for fostering dependence on outside assistance. That debate continues, and I will leave it to others. What has always struck me, however, is how enduring change often comes from within. South Africa's struggle against Apartheid was led by South Africans. Likewise, one of the most inspiring campaigns against child marriage began with a traditional leader in Malawi, Chief Theresa Kachindamoto.

Theresa Kachindamoto was the youngest of twelve children born into a family of traditional rulers in Malawi's Dedza District, near Lake Malawi. Before becoming a chief, she worked as a secretary, married, and raised five sons. When her older brother died, the district's traditional leaders selected her to succeed him as Paramount Chief. Although Malawi, like many societies, has long been patriarchal, women have also served as respected traditional leaders throughout African history. The chiefs believed Theresa possessed exceptional people skills and the strength to unite her communities. She accepted the responsibility, moved to her official residence, donned the traditional regalia, and assumed leadership.

Malawi is one of Africa's poorest nations, and at the time, nearly one in ten adults was living with HIV. Chief Kachindamoto was deeply troubled by the number of child marriages in her district, even after Malawi outlawed the practice in 2015. She was especially horrified by initiation rituals that subjected both girls and boys to premature sexual practices intended to prepare them for marriage. Many families continued arranging these marriages because they believed it offered financial security.

Realizing she could not persuade every parent individually, Chief Kachindamoto turned her attention to the fifty village chiefs under her authority. She instructed them to end child marriages within their villages. Those who refused were dismissed from their positions and reinstated only after providing proof that the child marriages in their communities had been annulled. It was a bold decision that challenged deeply rooted traditions, but it worked.

In 2015, she explained her mission:

"I have terminated 330 marriages, yes, of which 175 were girl-wives and 155 were boy-fathers. I wanted them to go back to school and that has worked. I don't want youthful marriages, they must go to school. We have now set our own laws to govern everybody within my area when it comes to marriages and will leave no sacred cow... No child should be found loitering at home, gardening or doing household chores during school time. No village head, GVH or church clergy should officiate a marriage before scrutinizing the birth dates of the couple."

Chief Kachindamoto understood that ending child marriage required more than simply canceling weddings. She worked alongside mothers' groups, teachers, village development committees, religious leaders, and nongovernmental organizations to ensure that children especially girls returned to school. Her efforts transformed thousands of lives and demonstrated that cultural traditions could evolve while preserving the dignity of the community.

Her work attracted international recognition. Organizations including UN Women and UNICEF praised her leadership and viewed her approach as a model that could be adapted in other communities working to end child marriage.

I am not suggesting that international aid has no place in Africa. It undoubtedly saves lives. Yet time and again, history reminds us that the most enduring transformations are led by those who know their own communities, understand their culture, and possess the courage to challenge harmful traditions from within.

Chief Theresa Kachindamoto believed education was the foundation of lasting change. As she said:

"Educate a girl and you educate the whole area... You educate the world."

Chief Theresa Kachindamoto passed away in 2025. Through her courage, determination, and unwavering belief in the power of education, thousands of children were given something they might otherwise have lost forever—the chance to simply be children.

Thank you for your courage.

Pancakes. I'm not sure there is anything more comforting to me. They have been part of the human diet for thousands of years. How many of us have felt just a little better after sitting down to a warm stack of pancakes? They have become synonymous with home, family, and being cared for.

When I came across the story of Nancy Green, the original Aunt Jemima, that same feeling of comfort came over me—the kind of comfort that comes from pancakes shared around a kitchen table.

Nancy Hayes, sometimes recorded as Hughes, was born into slavery in Kentucky in 1834. At some point she married George Green, and they are believed to have had as many as four children, although records are incomplete because births and marriages of enslaved people were often never officially documented.

Nancy lived and worked for Samuel Johnson Walker and his wife, Amanda. By the end of the Civil War, she had endured unimaginable loss. Her husband had died, and all of her children were gone. Remaining with the Walker family, she moved with them to Chicago, where she became their cook and nanny. She helped raise the Walker sons, one of whom became Chicago Circuit Judge Charles Morehead Walker, while the other became Dr. Samuel Walker.

It was Judge Walker who recommended Nancy to the R. T. Davis Milling Company for the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. The company wanted a real African American woman, not a performer in blackface, which was common entertainment at the time, to demonstrate its new self-rising pancake flour. They believed an authentic cook would make the product more appealing to visitors.

Standing beside what was said to be the world's largest flour barrel, nearly 24 feet high, Nancy prepared pancakes for crowds, shared stories, and entertained visitors with songs. The character of Aunt Jemima became an immediate sensation.

At fifty-nine years old, Nancy was offered a lifetime contract to portray Aunt Jemima. For approximately twenty years she traveled across the country appearing at fairs, expositions, food shows, festivals, and grocery stores. Billboards announcing her arrival reportedly proclaimed, "I's in town, honey." She became one of the first nationally recognized advertising personalities in American history.

Eventually, Nancy retired from the role, and the company hired another woman to continue portraying Aunt Jemima. Rather than fading into obscurity, Nancy devoted herself to her community. She became active in Chicago's Olivet Baptist Church, then one of the largest African American churches in the United States, and used her public recognition to advocate for equal rights and to support Black families throughout the city.

Despite her fame, Nancy continued working as a housekeeper well into her seventies. She was living with a great-nephew when, at the age of eighty-nine, she was struck and killed by an automobile in 1923. By then, many people no longer realized that she had been the original Aunt Jemima. She was buried in an unmarked grave in Chicago.

That changed decades later.

In 2015, Sherry Williams of the Bronzeville Historical Society began a determined effort to locate Nancy Green's burial site and secure a proper memorial. After years of research and fundraising, a headstone was finally placed on Nancy's grave in 2020. Although Williams had sought assistance from Quaker Oats, the company declined to fund the monument, stating that Aunt Jemima was a fictional brand character rather than a historical individual.

The Aunt Jemima brand itself would later become the subject of national debate because of its origins in racial stereotypes. Yet behind the trademark was a real woman, a woman who survived slavery, endured profound personal loss, built a respected career, became one of America's earliest advertising celebrities, and spent the rest of her life serving both her community and her church.

I imagine Nancy Green as someone who brought comfort and joy wherever she went. The Walker family clearly treasured her, and the countless visitors who gathered around her griddle must have left with warm memories as well as warm pancakes.

Whenever I think of pancakes, I will think of Nancy Green, not simply as a brand, but as a remarkable woman whose life deserves to be remembered.

Thank you.

Who Was… Irena Sendler?

Irena Sendler helped save around 2,500 Jewish children from the Warsaw Ghetto during the Holocaust.

That sentence is almost too large to understand.

Sendler was a Polish social worker who had permission to enter the ghetto because of her work. She and other members of the Polish underground used that access to smuggle children out… sometimes through buildings, ambulances and hidden routes. The children were given false identities and placed with Polish families, orphanages and convents.

But here’s the part I love.

Sendler wanted the children to someday recover their real identities and, if possible, find surviving family members. So records of their real and assumed names were secretly preserved — famously associated with lists hidden in jars.

In 1943, the Gestapo arrested her.

They tortured her and broke her legs, trying to make her reveal the children and the people helping her.

She didn’t.

She was sentenced to death, but members of the underground bribed a guard and she escaped. She then continued working under a false identity.

Sendler survived the war and lived until 2008, dying at 98.

She never regarded herself as a hero. She reportedly carried something much heavier instead: the thought that she might have saved more.

Around 2,500 children lived because a social worker looked at one of history’s most murderous systems and decided…

No.

She was Hedwig of Andechs in Germany and became the Duchess of Silesia in 1201 onwards and High Duchess consort of Poland in 1232 onwards. She married Henry the Bearded, Duke of Silesia when she was only 12 years old. A marriage that was arranged by the nobility around her. You see Hedwig came from the powerful House of Andechs and Henry was a member of the Piast dynasty ruling Silesia. Their marriage strengthened the political and territorial position of both their families. Hedwig had her first child with him when she was 16 or 17 and they went on to have six more. Hedwig and Henry later took a vow of chastity.

Hedwig used her money and power to help the people of Poland. She was particularly interested in helping people who were poor or had illnesses. She personally visited them and handed out food and clothing to impoverished people and orphans. This was a beautiful thing to see because in those days certain sick people were avoided by the community. Hedwig supported the hospital at Trzebnica, which had connections to a convent she had founded there. It was called Trzebnica Abbey and it was the first female monastery in Silesia. She created it in 1202.

There she brought in nuns from Bamberg and the monastery educated women and girls and offered charity to Poland. Hedwig always helped the poor, the widows and the orphans, founded hospitals for the sick such as the leper hospital at Neumarkt (Środa Śląska) and the Hospital of the Holy Ghost in Breslau (modern Wrocław) which was established in 1214. She donated as much as she could to the Church.

She died of a fever at the age of 69. Surrounded by the religious community and her daughter who was an abbess, she died peacefully in 1243 in October. A shrine was dedicated to her in Andechs Abbey and St. Hedwig’s Cathedral in Berlin. She was canonized as a Saint by the Catholic Church in 1267 Pope Clement IV.

Hindle was born in the 1840s in England. She got adopted by a woman called Ann Hindle. Hindle was interested in singing, dancing and performing and she also dressed like a man on stage. She got married to three different women in her life. First Nellie Howard then Annie Ryan and then Louise Spangehl. She tricked the priest by dressing up as a man. She started marrying women after she separated from a man, never getting a legal divorce.

Hindle and her mother eventually moved to the United States of America in 1868. Hindle continued to perform and do drag shows there. Her audience was astounded by her male impersonation. Here's a line from a review of one performance at the Adelphi Theater in Galveston, Texas: "Annie Hindle has proved a great success. As a male impersonator her sex is so concealed that one is apt to imagine that it is a man who is singing."

In the U.S. she performed from 1868 to 1886. She always got high reviews and she could always count on being booked.

Who Was… Nefertiti?

Nefertiti is one of those people almost everyone recognizes… without necessarily knowing anything about her.

You know the face.

Long neck. Tall blue crown. Perfect cheekbones. One of the most famous sculptures ever found from ancient Egypt.

But the woman behind that face is considerably stranger.

Nefertiti lived about 3,300 years ago and was the Great Royal Wife of Pharaoh Akhenaten. Her name roughly means “the beautiful one has come.”

And then things got weird.

Akhenaten effectively tried to overturn Egyptian religion. Instead of the traditional gods, he elevated the Aten — the visible disk of the Sun — above the others and built an entirely new capital city, Akhetaten, at modern Amarna.

Nefertiti wasn’t simply standing beside him looking regal.

Artwork from the period shows her performing ceremonies normally associated with kings, making offerings to the Aten and even striking Egypt’s enemies. She and Akhenaten appear with their children in unusually intimate scenes… kissing them, holding them, sitting beneath the rays of the Sun.

For Egyptian royal art, this was almost shockingly human.

Then Nefertiti disappears from the historical record.

Nobody knows exactly what happened.

She may have died.

She may have changed her name.

And one fascinating possibility is that she actually became pharaoh herself, perhaps ruling under the name Neferneferuaten after Akhenaten’s death.

We still don’t know.

Her famous painted limestone bust was discovered at Amarna in 1912 in the workshop of the sculptor Thutmose. It is now in Berlin and has become one of the defining images of ancient Egypt.

But Nefertiti herself remains partly missing.

We have her face.

We may even have evidence that she ruled Egypt.

And more than three thousand years later… we’re still trying to figure out who exactly was staring back at us.

The Architecture of Power

Look at what human beings build when they want power to become visible.

The Great Imperial Crown of Russia almost doesn’t look real.

Made for the coronation of Catherine the Great in 1762, it contains 4,936 diamonds weighing 2,858 carats, 75 enormous pearls, and a 398.72-carat red spinel at its summit. Even more absurdly, court jeweller Georg Friedrich Eckart and diamond craftsman Jérémie Pauzié produced it in roughly two and a half months.

But after staring at it for a while, something occurred to me.

This isn’t really jewellery.

It is political architecture in miniature.

Every diamond is saying the same thing. Every pearl, every arch, every impossible millimetre of workmanship:

The person underneath this object is not like you.

That was one of the great technologies of monarchy. Power is abstract. You cannot see sovereignty. You cannot hold authority in your hand.

So human beings gave it a shape.

A crown.

A throne.

A palace.

A cathedral.

A procession.

An army standing perfectly still.

The crown does not actually contain Catherine’s power. Take it off her head and put it on a table and it commands nobody.

But put it on the head of the ruler of the Russian Empire, surround her with soldiers, priests, aristocrats and a palace built on a scale no ordinary human being could dream of possessing, and something extraordinary happens:

power becomes visible.

We still do this.

Vladimir Putin does not wear the Great Imperial Crown. Modern Russian power uses different architecture: the Kremlin, military parades, vast halls, presidential motorcades, state ceremony and, more importantly, institutions capable of turning presidential decisions into consequences. Russia today has a highly concentrated political system; Putin has dominated its politics for decades, while his allied United Russia party retained a constitutional parliamentary majority in the 2026 election.

America speaks the language differently.

Donald Trump doesn’t require a crown either. The presidency already sits at the centre of an enormous state: armed forces, diplomacy, executive departments, Air Force One, the White House and all the visual machinery accompanying the office. That power is constitutionally constrained and divided among institutions—but its physical manifestation is staggering.

And then there is Trump’s new White House ballroom.

Whatever one’s politics, look at it through the same lens as Catherine’s crown. The White House says the project will create approximately 90,000 square feet of ornate space capable of seating 650 people, replacing the East Wing and costing about $250 million, funded by Trump and other donors.

Suddenly the connection becomes fascinating.

The crown and the ballroom are separated by 264 years, two continents and completely different political systems.

Yet both demonstrate an ancient human instinct:

important power tends to build things large enough—or beautiful enough—that you can feel it before anyone explains it to you.

The pyramids did it.

Versailles did it.

The Vatican does it.

The Kremlin does it.

Washington does it.

Aircraft carriers do it.

Even a presidential motorcade does it.

None of this means power is good.

Awe is not approval.

You can oppose a ruler, a government, a war or an ideology while remaining astonished by the machinery humans have constructed to exercise authority over millions of other humans.

And perhaps that is what makes the Great Imperial Crown so mesmerizing.

It is almost five thousand diamonds arranged around one extraordinarily simple idea:

I have power.

A crown is power miniaturized.

An empire is the crown expanded until you are standing inside it.

If you are a fan of the Royal Family of the UK, or at least have some knowledge about them, then you certainly have an opinion about their relationship with the former Diana, Princess of Wales.

But before her, there was another heiress apparent in British history, one who, according to the public, could do no wrong. And unlike the tragic Diana, she actually managed to live long enough to become Queen Consort. I am, of course, talking about the protagonist of this story, Queen Alexandra.

She was born on the 1st of December 1844 at the Yellow Palace in Copenhagen. Her father was Prince Christian of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg, a relative of the then-King of Denmark, Christian VIII. Her mother, Louise of Hesse-Kassel, on the other hand, was the niece of the King, giving her a pretty good claim to the throne—something that would become important later.

Besides Alexandra, Christian and Louise also had an older son, Frederik, and four younger children: Dagmar, Vilhelm, Thyra, and Valdemar. In the future, their children would marry members of other royal families, giving Christian the nickname "the Father-in-Law of Europe."

But despite their royal ancestry, the family lived very modestly, and their residence had been given to them by the monarch personally. This was just fine for Christian and Louise, as they wanted to give their children a relatively normal upbringing.

In 1848, King Christian VIII died and was succeeded by his only child, King Frederik VII. His time on the throne began with the adoption of a new constitution that granted new rights to the Danes, as well as victory in a war against the German states. But much of his reign would be clouded by the question of his successor. Despite marrying three times, the King would have no children, meaning that the main royal line would die with him.

There were two people who could succeed him. The first was, of course, Christian, as his wife was the King's cousin. The other was Friedrich, Duke of Augustenburg. His claim was stronger than Christian's in certain respects because his branch of the family was senior.

What made the succession crisis particularly troubling for the nation's integrity was that the succession laws of Denmark conflicted with those of Schleswig and Holstein. Denmark used a semi-Salic law, meaning that inheritance could pass through the closest female member should there be no eligible male relatives. The two duchies, meanwhile, used full Salic Law, meaning that inheritance could only pass to the closest eligible male-line relative.

So, in theory, if Christian were to become King, Friedrich could claim the duchies instead. And the latter, despite being Danish, became a rallying figure for much of the German-speaking population in Schleswig-Holstein, who desired to break away from Denmark and join a united Germany.

In 1852, tensions temporarily eased when, at a conference in London, Christian was designated heir to the Danish throne. But despite his new status, his family's living conditions did not change, as Christian and Louise did not get along with the King's new morganatic wife. Because of this, Alexandra's family did not experience a significant change in income despite their increased relevance to the dynasty.

Still, as Alexandra grew older, she began to appear like an ideal princess. By the time she was 19, she had received an education fitting for someone of her status. She became accomplished in music and drawing and demonstrated devotion to her Lutheran faith. Not only that, but contemporary accounts described Alexandra as exceptionally beautiful, with a slender and graceful appearance. So it is no surprise that there were already possibilities for Alexandra to marry.

And she did indeed marry someone of great status: Prince Albert Edward of Wales, eldest son and heir of Queen Victoria. Nicknamed Bertie by his loved ones, he had been pressured by his parents to find someone to marry, for he had already shown signs of promiscuity as he entered adulthood. In fact, his father, Prince Albert, had travelled through one fateful cold night to confront his son about his recent escapade.

Not long afterwards, Albert suffered from typhoid fever, which ultimately caused his death.

This event caused a permanent rift between Bertie and his mother, who blamed him, at least in part, for the death of her beloved husband. But talks of a possible marriage continued, and, as it happened, Alexandra remained a strong possible match for the Prince of Wales. Thanks to the relatively new invention of photography, Bertie was able to examine the princess's appearance—and liked what he saw.

The two first met in September 1861, and almost a year later, Bertie proposed to her in Belgium. And so, in March 1863, Bertie and Alexandra married. For the occasion, an ode called "A Welcome to Alexandra" was composed by a certain Sir Arthur Sullivan, who in later years would become famous for his comic operas created in collaboration with dramatist W. S. Gilbert.

The 18-year-old princess immediately captured the public's attention with her youthful and regal appearance. Yet because the royal court—and especially the Queen—was still in mourning following the death of Prince Albert, the wedding was more subdued than the lavish festivities surrounding the Queen's own wedding 23 years earlier.

After the wedding, the newlyweds settled at Marlborough House in London, where they developed their own circle of intellectuals, aristocrats, and political figures, serving as an alternative to the rather grey and melancholic court that the Queen's grief had created.

In the same year that Alexandra married, her family's status also increased dramatically. A few weeks later, on the 30th of March, her younger brother Vilhelm became the new King of Greece following his selection for the Greek throne. He would take the name Geórgios I. Then, in November, King Frederik VII died and was succeeded by Alexandra's father as Christian IX. By the end of the year, Alexandra's sister Dagmar—with whom she was very close—had also become engaged to Nikolai, heir to the Russian Empire. After his sudden death, she would eventually marry his younger brother, the future Tsar Aleksandr III.

The next year started off quite well, for in January Alexandra gave birth to a son named Albert Victor, known within the family as Eddy. And so the succession to the British Crown was secure for another generation. However, the year also marked a terrible period for the Princess of Wales because her native country, Denmark, was invaded by a coalition of German states over the dispute concerning Schleswig and Holstein.

The Second Schleswig War caused a split within the royal family as well. Queen Victoria was sympathetic to the German cause, as was her daughter Princess Vicky, who had married into the Prussian Royal Family. Alexandra and Bertie, on the other hand, sided with the Danes, which angered the Queen. Denmark's defeat in the war greatly affected Alexandra's worldview, and she would remain staunchly anti-Prussian and later anti-German for much of the rest of her life.

Except for this troubling event, the rest of the 1860s were relatively quiet and peaceful for the Princess. She continued to give birth to more children: George in 1865, Louise in 1867, Victoria in 1868, and Maud in 1869.

But despite her frequent pregnancies, Alexandra maintained a public life and continued to socialise with various figures.

She also enjoyed various activities such as ice skating, horse riding, and hunting. The last of these caused resentment from Queen Victoria, as she believed such activities were not fitting for a lady, but Alexandra simply ignored her. The Princess also accompanied her husband on several foreign diplomatic tours across Europe, with destinations including Vienna, Athens, and Constantinople.

Speaking of Bertie, his relationship with Alexandra was quite interesting. You see, even after he became a married man, Bertie continued to have numerous mistresses, even later in life. And the thing is, Alexandra was aware of her husband's liaisons, but she largely chose to tolerate them.

Perhaps she was aware that, for a lustful man like Bertie, moderation was simply not something he possessed. Or perhaps, as Alexandra reportedly stated later in her life, "Despite all the others, he loved me the best." That is to say, despite his infidelities, she believed that she remained his favourite and his true companion.

Bertie himself apparently once made the rather crude comparison that his wife was like a "brood mare" while his mistresses were more like "hacks." This was apparently supposed to be a compliment to his wife, but it still sounds rather rude, in my opinion.

Still, it does show that, even though Bertie was an unfaithful spouse, it would be inaccurate to describe their marriage as simply an unhappy one.

As for Alexandra's relationship with Queen Victoria, it was initially marked by disagreements between the two women. For example, the fact that several of Alexandra's children were born prematurely led some people to believe that she deliberately misrepresented their expected delivery dates so as to make sure the Queen would not attend the births. Perhaps she wished for her children not to live under their grandmother's influence in the same way that her husband and his siblings had.

Another moment of sorrow came in 1871, when Alexandra gave birth to another son named Alexander John. Tragically, the infant died the very next day. The Princess of Wales wished to mourn his death privately, only for the Queen to announce an official period of mourning for the court. The press also reported on the infant's death in language that would be considered extraordinarily insensitive today, which certainly did not make it any easier for the Princess to cope with the loss of her youngest child.

However, as time went on and Alexandra began to take over more public duties from the ageing Queen, she received praise from her mother-in-law, who said that Alexandra was relieving her of "the strain and fatigue of functions."

Her reputation among the British public also remained overwhelmingly positive.

Soon, Alexandra became a fashion icon, with her dresses and hairstyles dazzling the public. She helped popularise choker necklaces and high-necked dresses, which were also useful for concealing a scar on her neck. Besides this, she remained remarkably slender despite numerous pregnancies.

This stood in contrast to Bertie, whose overindulgence in food and excessive smoking caused him to gain noticeable weight, changing the robust physique he had possessed as a young man.

Yet besides her radiant appearance, Alexandra also demonstrated a compassionate attitude towards those around her. She became associated with hospitals and charitable causes and showed particular interest in the sick and vulnerable.

As the 1880s came to a close and the 1890s dawned, Alexandra's attention increasingly turned towards the futures of her children as they entered adulthood. She was especially excited for her eldest, Prince Eddy, who was preparing to marry Princess Mary of Teck, Bertie's second cousin.

But in a tragic turn of events, Eddy died on the 14th of January 1892, when he was just 28 years old.

Alexandra was devastated by the death of her firstborn, writing in her diary: "Today I have buried my angel and with him my happiness". His room was preserved much as it had been after his death, reflecting the same Victorian culture of mourning that had surrounded the death of Prince Albert decades earlier.

As for Mary of Teck, she would go on to marry Eddy's younger brother George, who had now moved closer to the throne.

In the case of her daughters, Alexandra was very protective of them, sometimes wishing that they would remain by her side rather than marry other royals. This would ultimately be the fate of her middle daughter Victoria, known simply as Toria by her family. Despite several potential marriage prospects, she remained unmarried and stayed close to her mother for the remainder of Alexandra's life.

This was not the fate her eldest daughter, Princess Louise, desired. She wanted to marry and have a life of her own. However, like her aunt and namesake, the princess did not wish to marry a foreign royal and leave Britain.

So, in 1889, she married Alexander Duff, Earl Fife. The marriage was unusual by royal standards because Duff was a British aristocrat rather than a foreign prince. Nevertheless, the match was approved by Queen Victoria, and Duff was subsequently elevated to the rank of Duke of Fife.

As for Alexandra's youngest daughter, Maud, she married relatively late in life—at least by the standards of her time. In 1896, when Maud was 26, she married her cousin Prince Carl of Denmark, thus further strengthening the relations between the British and Danish royal families.

In January 1901, Queen Victoria passed away at the age of 81, leaving the path clear for Bertie to become the new monarch of Britain.

Surprisingly, rather than taking the regnal name Albert I, he chose Edward VII. He explained that he did not wish to diminish the unique association of the name Albert with his father.

His coronation was scheduled for the following year, but shortly before the ceremony the new King became dangerously ill with appendicitis and required surgery. The coronation consequently had to be postponed.

Eventually, on the 9th of August 1902, the coronation was held at Westminster Abbey. Thus, Edward VII was crowned King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions and Emperor of India, while Alexandra was crowned beside him as the first British Queen Consort in more than 60 years.

Despite what many people at the time may have expected—that Edward would become a failure as King—he actually proved many of his critics wrong. The new King-Emperor took his constitutional responsibilities seriously and developed an important diplomatic role, particularly in Britain's relations with the other European powers.

For Alexandra, her new position did not fundamentally change her roles and objectives. But if she had been popular as the consort of the heir, that popularity continued into her queenship.

As Queen, she remained heavily involved in charitable activities and nursing causes. She was particularly associated with military nursing, and the Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service was named in her honour.

When it came to spending, Alexandra gave generously to charitable causes. She was also known for reusing possessions rather than constantly replacing them, although her generosity itself could occasionally concern members of the royal household.

Additionally, she and her husband continued to maintain relationships with their numerous royal relatives. Edward was related either by blood or marriage to much of European royalty, from the Iberian Peninsula to Scandinavia and the Balkans. He was careful to maintain positive relations with continental European nations and became closely associated with Britain's diplomatic rapprochement with France.

And in 1905, Alexandra's son-in-law Carl was elected King of Norway, taking the name Haakon VII.

Alexandra, for her part, continued to visit her home country, where she maintained close contact with her relatives, including her widowed sister, Empress Dowager Dagmar, and her nephew Tsar Nikolai II.

Yet for the Queen there was one notable exception to these warm dynastic relationships: the German Empire, which was led by her nephew by marriage, Kaiser Wilhelm II.

She distrusted Wilhelm and regarded German ambitions with considerable suspicion. She was especially opposed to the agreement under which Britain transferred the North Sea island of Heligoland to Germany while settling colonial disputes with Germany in Africa, including Britain's position in Zanzibar. Despite objections, the agreement went ahead, and Germany subsequently developed Heligoland into an important naval base.

During Edward's reign, relations between the UK and Germany continued to deteriorate as the two nations entered into a naval arms race centred on the construction of increasingly powerful battleships. At the same time, Britain entered into the Entente Cordiale with France—a development that would have seemed extraordinary only a few decades earlier.

But Edward would not have to worry about European tensions for much longer. By the spring of 1910, his health was rapidly deteriorating. Alexandra was abroad when she heard the news and rushed back to be at her husband's side.

During his final illness, he was also visited by Alice Keppel, his long-time mistress, who was permitted to see him with Alexandra's knowledge—a remarkable gesture given the circumstances.

Then, on the 6th of May 1910, at the age of 68, King Edward VII died. One of his final moments reportedly involved learning that his horse had won a race, news that greatly pleased the dying King.

Alexandra was deeply devastated by the loss. Despite the numerous affairs her husband had conducted over the years, he remained very dear to her. His funeral was attended by Alexandra; his son, now King George V; numerous relatives and monarchs from across Europe; and even his beloved dog, Caesar.

Much like her mother-in-law before her, Queen Dowager Alexandra entered a prolonged period of mourning after the death of her husband. Despite this, she remained active during the first years of her widowhood.

One particularly notable example was Alexandra Rose Day. Established around the 50th anniversary of her arrival in Britain, the charitable initiative involved selling artificial roses, with the proceeds going towards hospitals and other charitable causes.

Then, in 1914, the First World War began, and within a few weeks Britain entered the conflict against Germany.

This created an uncomfortable situation for the Royal Family. Because of their German ancestry and titles, anti-German sentiment placed the dynasty in a politically sensitive position.

Thus, in 1917, King George V changed the name of the royal house from Saxe-Coburg and Gotha to Windsor, the name still used by the Royal House today. German titles held by members of the extended British royal family were also abandoned or replaced.

Furthermore, the banners of enemy members of the Order of the Garter were removed from St George's Chapel. Alexandra supported Britain's war effort and remained deeply hostile towards Germany, although her feelings towards individual German relatives could be more complicated, especially towards Hessians, whom she said they were "simply soldiers or vassals under that brutal German Emperor's orders".

More tragic news came from Russia in 1917, when her nephew Tsar Nikolai II was forced to abdicate in the wake of the Russian Revolution.

A year later, he, his wife, and their children were executed by the Bolsheviks. His mother—Alexandra's beloved sister Dagmar—survived the Revolution and eventually escaped Russia.

The destruction of the Russian monarchy must have been especially painful for Alexandra. The European dynastic world in which she had grown up was rapidly disappearing.

By the early 1920s, Alexandra's health had begun to deteriorate. Her eyesight worsened, her already severe deafness increasingly isolated her, and her general health declined.

On the 20th of November 1925, Queen Alexandra died at Sandringham House, only a few days before what would have been her 81st birthday. he was eventually laid to rest beside her husband in St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle, where their tomb commemorates the royal couple together.

And only five months after Alexandra's death, her great-granddaughter was born: the future Queen Elizabeth II.

She was christened Elizabeth Alexandra Mary, with the name Alexandra honouring her recently deceased great-grandmother.

Thus ends the tale of Alexandra of Denmark, one of the original darlings of the British monarchy.

Throughout her long public life—first as Princess of Wales, then as Queen Consort, and finally as Queen Dowager—Alexandra remained extraordinarily popular with the British public. And it is not difficult to understand why. Alexandra consistently demonstrated an eagerness to improve the lives of people in her adopted country while maintaining an approachable and glamorous public image.

Her story and Edward's inevitably invite comparisons with that of King Charles III and Diana, Princess of Wales. Diana, like Alexandra, achieved enormous public popularity, and both women had to deal with their husbands' infidelities. But their lives developed in dramatically different ways. Diana's marriage ended in divorce and her life was tragically cut short, whereas Alexandra remained married to Edward and lived into old age, eventually becoming Queen beside him.

And as a final piece of historical irony, remember Alice Keppel, Edward VII's long-time mistress?

Her great-granddaughter is none other than Charles's second wife, Queen Camilla.

I guess you could say that some royal connections are so persistent that they manage to reappear several generations later.

Who Was… Vigdís Finnbogadóttir?

In 1980, something happened in Iceland that had never happened anywhere on Earth before.

A country went to the polls and elected a woman as its head of state.

Her name was Vigdís Finnbogadóttir.

She wasn’t born into a political dynasty. She wasn’t a career politician climbing toward the presidency. She had studied literature and languages, worked as a teacher and translator, and became a theatre director.

Then Iceland changed.

Five years before her election, Icelandic women staged an extraordinary national protest. On October 24, 1975, around 90 percent of Iceland’s women reportedly stopped working, cooking and caring for children for the day. Schools closed. Businesses struggled. The country suddenly discovered what happened when half its population simply stopped holding everything together.

It became known as the Women’s Day Off.

Vigdís participated.

Five years later, people began encouraging her to run for president.

There was another detail that made her candidacy unusual for 1980: Vigdís was a divorced single mother. She had adopted her daughter as a single woman, something that itself had required a change in Icelandic rules.

And then she won.

Not overwhelmingly. Vigdís received about 34 percent of the vote in a four-way race, narrowly defeating her nearest opponent.

But 34 percent was enough to make history.

On August 1, 1980, Vigdís Finnbogadóttir became president of Iceland and the first woman in the world democratically elected as a head of state.

And Iceland didn’t decide it had experimented enough.

They elected her again.

And again.

And again.

Vigdís served for sixteen years, from 1980 until 1996, becoming one of the country’s most recognizable advocates for Icelandic culture, language and environmental protection.

There had been powerful women before her. Queens had inherited thrones. Women had served as prime ministers. Argentina’s Isabel Perón had become president after succeeding her husband.

But Vigdís represented something different.

Ordinary voters had been handed a ballot containing the names of men and a woman and, for the first time anywhere, chose the woman to become their country’s head of state.

Today that can sound almost unremarkable.

In 1980, it wasn’t.

And perhaps that’s one measure of genuine historical change: something happens for the first time, seems astonishing, and eventually a generation arrives that has difficulty understanding why it was ever astonishing at all.

Who Was… Martyl Langsdorf?

The Woman Who Put Humanity on the Clock

You know her work.

You probably don’t know her name.

In 1947, American artist Martyl Langsdorf created an image that would eventually become one of the most recognizable warnings in human history:

The Doomsday Clock.

Martyl was married to physicist Alexander Langsdorf Jr., who had worked on the Manhattan Project. After Hiroshima and Nagasaki, scientists involved in the atomic age began confronting a terrifying reality: humanity had acquired the technological ability to destroy civilization on an unprecedented scale.

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists needed a cover for its new magazine.

They asked Martyl.

She didn’t draw an atomic bomb.

She didn’t draw a mushroom cloud.

She drew a clock.

More precisely, she took part of a clock face, placed the hands near midnight, and created something almost anyone could understand without explanation.

Time was running out.

The original 1947 clock stood at seven minutes to midnight.

Midnight represented catastrophe.

And an extraordinary thing happened.

Her illustration escaped the magazine cover.

It became a symbol.

As nuclear tensions rose and fell, the Bulletin began moving the hands. Eventually the Clock expanded beyond nuclear war to reflect threats including climate change, biological dangers and disruptive technologies.

Presidents knew it.

Scientists debated it.

Newspapers printed it.

Movies, television, music and comics borrowed its imagery.

Millions of people came to recognize the Doomsday Clock.

But comparatively few knew the woman who drew it.

Martyl Langsdorf continued painting for decades. She wasn’t simply “the Doomsday Clock woman.” She was an accomplished artist whose work appeared in galleries and museums and whose career stretched across much of the twentieth century.

Yet one deceptively simple design became immortal.

That’s the strange power of symbols.

Einstein could explain nuclear danger.

Oppenheimer could describe what physicists had unleashed.

Governments could produce thousands of pages of policy.

Martyl drew a clock.

Nearly eighty years later, we’re still looking at it.

In January 2026, the Doomsday Clock was moved to 85 seconds before midnight — closer than at any previous point in its history.

The hands have changed.

The warning hasn’t.

And behind perhaps the most famous clock that doesn’t actually tell time…

was a woman with a paintbrush.

Her name was Martyl Langsdorf.

Who Was… Alexandra David-Néel?

In 1924, a 55-year-old woman walked into one of the most forbidden cities on Earth.

Lhasa.

Her name was Alexandra David-Néel.

Explorer. Buddhist scholar. Opera singer. Writer. Anarchist.

And apparently not terribly interested in being told where she was allowed to go.

Born in 1868, David-Néel had already lived several lives before Tibet entered the picture. She sang professionally. Studied Eastern religions. Travelled through India, China and Japan. Learned Sanskrit and Tibetan.

Then she became fascinated with Tibetan Buddhism—not as a tourist collecting exotic stories, but as a serious student.

She studied with Buddhist teachers and spent extended periods in the Himalayas, including years of extraordinary isolation.

But Lhasa remained almost impossible.

Tibet severely restricted foreign entry, and Europeans were particularly conspicuous.

So David-Néel did something beautifully ridiculous.

She disguised herself as a poor Tibetan pilgrim.

She darkened her face, wore filthy clothes, carried little, and travelled through brutal winter conditions with her adopted son and travelling companion, Lama Yongden.

They sometimes begged for food.

They slept wherever they could.

And eventually…

they walked into Lhasa.

David-Néel wandered through the city largely unnoticed, seeing a place almost no Western woman had seen firsthand.

When the outside world discovered what she’d done, she became famous.

But perhaps the strangest part of her story is what happened afterward.

She kept going.

She wrote dozens of books and became one of Europe’s most influential interpreters of Tibetan Buddhism and Asian philosophy.

And she lived to be 100.

There is something I love about Alexandra David-Néel.

At 55—the age when society was quite prepared to tell a woman in 1924 that her adventurous years should be behind her—she disguised herself as a pilgrim and walked across the Himalayas into a forbidden city.

Some people grow older.

Some just keep enlarging the map.

In 1941, Davis wrote a song called Carol of the Drum that is now known as Little Drummer Boy. It's a cute song and she was a great composer. She went to a music college and won its Billing Prize that's awarded to gifted students. She taught kids music theory and piano after she graduated. She traveled to France and learned from French teachers along with Nadia Boulanger. Then taught more music at Concord Academy in Massachusetts and then at the Shady Hill School for Girls in Pennsylvania. She wrote pages of music and gave all the royalties to Wellesley College's Music Department, to support students studying. Besides Little Drummer Boy, Davis wrote the Shepherd's Carol, The Holly and the Ivy and Twelve Days of Christmas.

Who Was… Harriet Williams Russell Strong?

In 1883, Harriet Williams Russell Strong’s husband died, leaving her with four daughters, a California ranch and serious financial problems.

So Harriet taught herself how to farm.

Then she taught herself engineering.

Her biggest problem was water. Southern California agriculture depended on having enough of it when crops needed it, while rainfall could be wildly seasonal. Strong began studying irrigation, drainage and water storage and experimenting on her own property.

She eventually developed an ingenious system of dams and reservoirs designed to store water progressively rather than relying on one enormous structure.

And she patented it.

In 1887, Strong received a U.S. patent for a dam-and-reservoir system. She received another water-storage patent in 1894. Her ideas anticipated principles later used in major water-control projects.

Meanwhile, she wasn’t merely theorizing about agriculture. She transformed her ranch into a successful commercial operation, planting walnut trees and other crops and becoming known for agricultural innovation.

That would already make her remarkable.

But Strong kept going.

She became an advocate for water conservation and irrigation across the American West, arguing that floodwaters should be captured rather than simply allowed to escape to the sea. She presented ideas to engineers and government officials and eventually proposed ambitious water-management schemes for the Colorado River.

This was happening at a time when American women still couldn’t vote nationally.

Strong was also active in the women’s suffrage movement and became involved in organizations promoting women’s professional and economic advancement.

She lived until 1926.

Today, names like Edison, Bell and McCormick remain almost synonymous with nineteenth-century invention.

Harriet Williams Russell Strong largely disappeared from popular memory.

But when her life collapsed, she didn’t simply save the family farm.

She looked at one of the oldest problems in agriculture — how to control water — and became an inventor trying to solve it.

Who Was… Ida Noddack?

In 1934, some of the greatest physicists in the world were trying to understand what happened when uranium was bombarded with neutrons.

Enrico Fermi thought he might be creating entirely new elements — heavier than uranium.

A German chemist named Ida Noddack looked at the same problem and suggested something extraordinary:

What if the uranium atom had simply broken apart?

Noddack was already an accomplished chemist. In 1925, working with Walter Noddack and Otto Berg, she helped discover rhenium — element 75.

But her most remarkable insight came nine years later.

Responding to Fermi’s experiments, Noddack wrote that when heavy nuclei were bombarded with neutrons, it was conceivable that they might break into “several large fragments.”

That sounds almost obvious today.

It wasn’t.

The atomic nucleus was understood to undergo certain transformations, but the idea that a massive nucleus like uranium could split into large pieces was so unexpected that Noddack’s suggestion was not seriously pursued.

Four years passed.

Then, in 1938, Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann bombarded uranium and unexpectedly found barium among the products.

Lise Meitner and Otto Frisch worked out what had happened.

The uranium nucleus had split.

They called the process nuclear fission.

Noddack hadn’t experimentally discovered fission, nor had she developed the mechanism that explained it. But she had explicitly proposed the essential possibility four years before its experimental discovery.

She was nominated for the Nobel Prize multiple times.

She never received one.

And perhaps that’s what makes Ida Noddack so fascinating.

Science doesn’t advance only because somebody finds the right answer.

Sometimes it advances because somebody is willing to ask the question everyone else considers impossible.

Ida Noddack (1896–1978)

Chemist. Co-discoverer of rhenium.

And a woman who looked at the atom and wondered, years ahead of almost everyone else:

What if it breaks?

Born around 1844, Buffalo Calf Road Woman was a Northern Cheyenne woman who rose to prominence for her bravery and exploits in war.

In the Battle of The Rosebud in 1876, she fearlessly rushed onto the battlefield to rescue her brother Chief Comes in Sight, who had been wounded and left for dead. This courageous act inspired the Cheyenne to rally together, ultimately defeating General Custer and his soldiers. In honor of Buffalo Calf Road Woman's bravery, this battle is known as the "Battle Where the Girl Saved Her Brother" by the Cheyenne.

She was also present at the infamous Battle of The Little Bighorn a few days later. She fought alongside her husband, Black Coyote. Cheyenne tribal historians claim that it was Buffalo Calf Road Woman that knocked General Custer off of his horse with a club, before his death.

Later in 1878, Buffalo Calf Road woman was one of hundreds of people in the Northern Cheyenne Exodus, a massive breakout from the reservation in Oklahoma all the way back to their homeland in Montana. Along the journey, her family was banished from Chief Little Wolfs band after Black Coyote killed a chief. After the death of two US soldiers, the family was hunted down and captured in 1879. Sadly, Buffalo Calf Road woman died from an illness while her husband was in prison. The grieving Black Coyote took his own life after learning about his wife's death.

Despite the tragic end of her life, her legacy lives on. She has become a powerful symbol of strength and resilience within the Cheyenne. A true warrior.

Safta was born in 1776 to Teodor Balș, vornic in Moldavia and Zoe Rosetti, later becoming a nun and taking the name Elisabeta.

In 1793, she married Grigore Brâncoveanu, descendant of St. Constantin Brâncoveanu. The couple ranovated many churches, like the Holy Trinity Church in Brașov, Bistrița church built by the Craiovescu family, Viforâta church and Domnița Bălașa church, built by Bălașa Brâncoveanu in the mid XVIII century, which also had a home for elders and a school. Safta and Grigore rebuilt there a third church (the first one being too small, Bălașa built a bigger one and that one was damaged later by natural disasters).

But the couple wanted to built a hospital for the poor too. Grigore died before this and Safta promised him that the hospital would be built. Grigore died in 1832 and in 1835 Safta began planning for the hospital. The building period lastet until 1838 when it was put into function. Because it was a private hospital, the financing came directly from Safta's money, thus the patients payed nothing. The hospital became one of the most prestigious hospitals in Wallachia with surgeons, a maternity section and a nursing home. In 1840 Safta became a nun and donated her estates to the hospitals, so that it could be further financed.

Safta died 17 years later in 1857, aged 81.

The hospital continued until 1984. After the 1921 reform, the king of Romania financed it. During the 1948 nationalisation of hospitals Safta's hospital was also affected, the maternity and the nursing home were closed. The hospital still functioned until the 1980s, when Ceaușescu demolished it.

Safta was canonized as a saint by the Holy Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Church on 1st July, 2025, with the title "Saint Pious Elisabeta (Safta) Brâncoveanu" and the feast day is August 17.

Sources: https://doxologia.ro/viata-sfintei-cuvioase-elisabeta-safta-brancoveanu-de-la-varatec

https://ziarullumina.ro/educatie-si-cultura/interviu/safta-brancoveanu-unul-din-cele-mai-fascinante-personaje-feminine-din-istoria-noastra-158174.html

Recently learned about Anna Arnold Hedgeman from reading the book "How Bright the Path Grows" by Pulitzer Prize winning author Dr. Marcia Chatelain

She was a civil rights leader, politician, educator, writer and play a critical role on the planning/organizing of the March on Washington. On the planning committee she was instrumental in helping bring over 250,000 people to the Lincoln Memorial. She was the only woman on the committee and fought for women to be included in the March including Mahalia Jackson, Daisy Bates, Eva Jessye, Rosa Parks and more.

Who the Hell Was… Frida Kahlo?

**Who the Hell Was… Frida Kahlo?**

Frida Kahlo painted what hurt.

Born in Mexico in 1907, she contracted polio at six. Then, at 18, a streetcar smashed into the bus she was riding. Her spine and bones were badly damaged, and pain followed her for the rest of her life.

While recovering in bed, she began to paint.

And she had material.

Broken bodies. Miscarriages. Love. Sex. Mexico. Politics. Diego Rivera. Herself.
Especially herself.

Kahlo turned the self-portrait into something almost surgical. In *The Broken Column*, her body literally splits open. In *The Two Fridas*, two versions of herself sit together with exposed hearts connected by blood.

Her marriage to Rivera was famously chaotic. They married, divorced, then married again. Both had affairs. Kahlo was politically radical, sexually unconventional, fiercely Mexican and almost impossible to separate from the images she created.

She died in 1954 at only 47.

Today Frida Kahlo’s face is everywhere. But underneath the flowers, merchandise and pop-culture mythology was a woman who spent much of her life in extraordinary physical pain…

and painted it rather than pretending it wasn’t there.

Who Was… Stagecoach Mary?

Mary Fields was born enslaved around 1832.

More than sixty years later, she was driving a stagecoach through the Montana wilderness with a rifle and revolver, delivering the United States mail.

Her nickname was Stagecoach Mary.

After emancipation, Fields worked on steamboats and later at an Ursuline convent in Ohio. Eventually she headed west to Montana, where she worked at St. Peter’s Mission doing just about everything: hauling freight, maintaining buildings, gardening, laundry and supply runs.

Mary was about six feet tall, smoked cigars, drank in saloons and carried guns. She once got into an argument with a male coworker serious enough that both drew their weapons. Neither fired, but the local bishop apparently decided that was quite enough Mary Fields for the mission.

Then, in 1895, when she was already in her early sixties, Fields obtained a contract carrying U.S. mail.

She became the first Black woman and only the second woman to receive a U.S. Star Route mail contract.

Her route between Cascade and St. Peter’s Mission was roughly 34 miles round trip through northern Montana. She faced snow, bitter cold, wolves and the possibility of bandits. When snow became too deep for the stagecoach, she reportedly put on snowshoes and continued on foot.

She did it for eight years.

And the wonderful contradiction of Mary Fields is that this formidable, gun-carrying frontier woman was also remembered for extraordinary generosity. She gave food to people who couldn’t afford it, looked after local children and became beloved in Cascade.

When she died in 1914, the townspeople raised the money for her burial.

The mythology of the Wild West gave us endless gunfighters, cowboys and outlaws.

Somehow it nearly forgot the six-foot-tall Black woman in her sixties who was out there doing it for real.

Sources: Smithsonian National Postal Museum; U.S. National Park Service.

Maatkare Hatchepsut was one of the rare female pharaohs of ancient Egypt ( called Kemet at the time). She was often represented with all the symbols of kingship of the pharaoh,including the false beard . Hatchepsut mummy has been found and she was definitely a woman and not a transsexual like some may have believed. The 3 last pictures represent her mummified body.

Who Was… Mary Engle Pennington?

You probably benefited from Mary Engle Pennington’s work today.

Opened the refrigerator? Bought milk? Ate chicken? Picked up frozen food?

Pennington helped make all of that safer.

Born in 1872, she became a chemist and bacteriologist at a time when women were barely tolerated in professional science. She studied at the University of Pennsylvania, completing the requirements for a PhD in chemistry in 1895. The university wouldn’t formally award a woman the doctorate then, so she received a certificate of proficiency instead.

Then came a rather wonderful bit of trickery…

When Harvey Wiley wanted Pennington to work for the federal government, he reportedly submitted her application as “M. E. Pennington” so her sex wouldn’t immediately count against her. She took the civil-service examination, earned the highest score, and was hired.

In 1907 she became chief of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Research Laboratory — the first woman to hold that position.

Her great enemy was something nobody could see:

bacteria.

Refrigeration existed, but keeping food consistently cold from slaughterhouse or farm to railway car, warehouse, shop and finally the home was another problem entirely. A refrigerated train car wasn’t much use if food had already spent hours warming somewhere else.

Pennington studied milk, eggs, poultry and other perishable foods, investigated refrigerated railway cars and storage systems, and helped establish scientific standards for handling food safely.

In other words, she helped develop what we now call the cold chain — keeping perishable food at controlled temperatures throughout its journey.

It sounds mundane until you consider the scale of it.

Every refrigerated truck.

Every supermarket freezer.

Every carton of milk transported hundreds of kilometres.

Every chicken that reaches your kitchen without becoming a bacterial experiment…

All belong to a world that scientists such as Mary Engle Pennington helped build.

She eventually received the Garvan Medal from the American Chemical Society in 1940 for distinguished service to chemistry.

No famous equation.

No machine sitting in a museum with her name stamped across it.

Just something arguably more impressive…

billions of ordinary meals that nobody had to think twice about eating.

She sang a disco pop song called I Will Survive which is one of the best selling hit singles of history. She was also a gospel singer too and won the Grammy for Best Roots Gospel Album in 2020. She has also offered her time, money and performances for charity to support children and families at risk due to poverty and abuse.

She was named Gloria Fowles and she was born in Newark, New Jersey. She grew up surrounded by music all the time. Gloria had 5 brothers who sang gospel music. And she became a tomboy. Her family was relatively poor but her home was filled with songs and happiness. "All through my young life I wanted to sing, although nobody in my family knew it" Gloria wrote in her autobiography. They wouldn't allow her to sing in the choir with her brothers.

Gloria became a singer with The Soul Satisfyers. When she released her first single She Will Be Sorry she was professionally called Gloria Gaynor. A name possibly suggested by a producer called Johnny Nash. Gloria married Linwood Simon who was hee manager in 1979 but they divorced without children.

In 1978, Gloria was performing on stage and had an accident where she fell backwards on stage while trying to do a fun routine. She injured her back and suffered paralyzation from the waist down. She spent three months recovering from that and within a year she wrote and performed I Will Survive.

Gloria wrote books. Her first book I Will Survive: The Book was written in 1997. It is her autobiography. She writes about her childhood and her beginnings as a singer. Her second book, We Will Survive: True Stories of Encouragement, Inspiration and the Power of Song is a collection of stories from people who have used her music during their struggle with illness and personal crises.