Virginia Hall, MBE was an American spy with the British Special Operations Executive during World War II and later with the American Office of Strategic Services and the Special Activities Division of the Central Intelligence Agency. She was “the most dangerous of all Allied spies”. Hall was born in Baltimore, Maryland in 1906. She attended …
Syeda Ghulam Fatima is a Pakistani human and labour rights activist, known for her work in ending bonded labour in brick kilns. She is General Secretary of Lahore-based Bonded Labour Liberation Front Pakistan (BLLF). Fatima is the daughter of a trade-unionist and small-scale railway employee Syed Deedar Hussain. She holds a Masters Degree in Political …
Aliya Moldagulova was a sniper during World War II. She is a Hero of the Soviet Union. Moldagulova was born in 1925 in Bulak, Kazakhstan. She lost her parents at a young age. Her mother had been shot in 1931 by a guard patrolling potato fields, her father Nurmukhambet Sarkulov was a victim of the …
Anne Frank was a German-born diarist and writer. Her wartime diary entitled The Diary of a Young Girl is one of the most widely read books in the world. It provides an insight into the lives of Jewish victims of the Holocaust. Frank was born in 1929 in Frankfurt, Germany to Otto Frank and Edith …
Hiuaz Kairovna Dospanova was the only female pilot and navigator from Kazakhstan to serve during the Second World War. Dospanova was born in 1922 in the village of Ganyushkino, Kazakhstan. She was an excellent student and graduated with honours from high school No. 1 in Uralsk in 1940. Dospanova was a member of her local …
Nawal El Saadawi is an Egyptian feminist writer, activist, physician and psychiatrist. El Saadawi was born in 1931 in the small village of Kafr Tahla. Her family were a mix of traditional and progressive. At the age of six El Saadawi was pinned down by four women in her home in Egypt and was subjected …
Kim Gordon is an American musician, songwriter, and visual artist. She is best known for being one of the founding members of Sonic Youth. Gordon was born in 1953, in Rochester, New York but grew up in Los Angeles, California. She attended a progressive elementary school that was attached to UCLA which focused on learning …
Hedy Lamarr was an inventor, pin-up and film actress. She co-developed an early technique for spread spectrum communications which are key in many wireless communications used today, including Wi-Fi. Lamarr was born Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler in 1914 in Vienna, Austria. In the late 1920’s, her acting talents were discovered by producer Max Reinhardt. He …
Faith Bandler was an Australian civil rights activist who campaigned for the rights of Indigenous Australians and South Sea Islanders. She is known for her leadership in the 1967 referendum on the rights of Aboriginal Australians. Bandler was born Ida Lessing Faith Mussing in Tumbulgum, New South Wales. Her father, Wacvie Peter Mussing was a …
Adele is a British Grammy Award-winning singer and songwriter. Adele Laurie Blue Adkins was born in 1988 in North London, England. Adele became interested in music at a young age and started singing at 4 years old. She spent most of her time singing and was influenced by the Spice Girls who she impersonated at …