Skladowska-Curie Maria (1867-1934) Polish-French experimental scientist, physicist, chemist, teacher, public figure. Marie Curie French and Polish scientist experimenter educator

Polish researchers led by psychologist Tomasz Grzyb have replicated an experiment conducted by Stanley Milgram almost half a century ago.

Then, in 1963, Milgram recruited volunteers to participate in the experiment, who were announced that the study would study the effect of pain on memory. They were told that one of the participants would memorize pairs of words from an extensive list - in reality, the role of the "learner" was played by a front actor. The participants were asked to check how well the student memorized the words, for mistakes they were asked to “punish” with electric shocks of different strengths.

After each press of the switch, the actor screamed loudly, groaned, pounded on the wall and demanded to stop bullying. From a certain point on, the tension had to be increased with each new mistake. In the event that the “teacher” hesitated, doubting whether to increase the voltage, the experimenter insisted on continuing the experiment, assuring that the responsibility for the life and health of the “student” was not the “teacher”, but the organizer of the experiment. At the highest voltage, the actor generally stopped making any sounds and showing signs of life. The results of the experiment were impressive: two-thirds of the participants in the experiment were able to bring the voltage to a maximum (450 volts) - they were not embarrassed by either screams or knocking on the wall.

All participants in the experiment were promised a cash reward of 4.5 dollars - they knew that they would receive it regardless of how the test went, in fact they were paid for coming to Milgram's laboratory. Later, scientists repeated this experiment on Yale students who did not receive any money for participation.

The experiment was widely discussed and many people, learning about it, say that they could never hurt another and no authority could influence their opinion. Polish researchers decided to find out if this is really the case.

They did not completely copy Milgram's experiment. To participate in it, they invited 80 men and women aged 18 to 69 years. In front of each of them were 10 buttons, each of which was responsible for a different voltage. The participants in the experiment could shock the test subject, who was in the next room - in reality, he did not feel these shocks and just pretended.

As in the original experiment, the experimenter insisted on continuing the experiment, using the phrases "it is necessary that you continue" and "you have no choice, you must continue." Despite the subject's screams and suffering, at the experimenter's command, 90% of the participants agreed to increase the tension - their proportion was even higher than in the Milgram experiment. However, if the “student” was a woman, the subjects refused to continue 3 times more often than if a man was in her place.

In general, the years go by, and most of us, scientists conclude, are still capable of hurting another, guided by authoritative opinion.

They have amazing fortitude, are not afraid to take risks and are definitely ahead of their time. They delight, fascinate, turn consciousness and history in general - 33 women who changed the world.

And if suddenly you lack inspiration right now, let their stories become a source of that very charge of energy with which you can achieve no less success.

Maria Sklodowska-Curie

French experimental scientist of Polish origin, teacher, public figure. Known for her research in the field of radioactivity, she was awarded the Nobel Prize: in physics and in chemistry, the first twice Nobel laureate in history.

Margaret Hamilton

She was the lead software engineer on the Apollo lunar mission project, and in the photo above she is standing in front of a code printout for the Apollo onboard computer, much of which she wrote and revised herself.

Catherine Schwitzer

American writer and television commentator, best known for being the first woman to officially run the Boston Marathon. The photo shows how difficult it was for her. A representative of the organizers of the marathon tried to force her away from the track and, according to Schwitzer, demanded that she "return the number and get the hell out of his marathon." Photos of this incident hit the front pages of the world's leading publications.

Valentina Tereshkova

The world's first female astronaut to fly solo. The flight on the Vostok-6 spacecraft lasted almost three days. By the way, Tereshkova told her family that she was leaving for paratrooper competitions, they learned about the flight from the news on the radio.

Keith Sheppard

Leader of the suffragette movement in New Zealand. It was New Zealand that became the first country where suffragettes were successful: in 1893, women gained the right to vote in elections.

Amelia Earhart

American writer and aviation pioneer who became the first female pilot to fly across the Atlantic Ocean, for which Amelia was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. She wrote several best-selling books about her flying, and she was one of the founders of the Ninety-Nine organization of women pilots and was elected its first president.

Kamako Kimura

Famous Japanese suffragist and activist. In this photo, Kamako Kimura is captured at a march in New York dedicated to the fight for the right of women to vote. October 23, 1917.

Eliza Zimfirescu

Along with the Irish Alice Perry, the Romanian Elisa Zimfirescu is considered one of the first female engineers in the world. Due to prejudice against women in science, Zamfirescu was not accepted into the National School of Bridges and Roads in Bucharest. But Eliza did not give up her dream and in 1909 she entered the Academy of Technology in Berlin. Eliza led several surveys that helped find new sources of coal and natural gas.

Rosa Lee Parks

American social activist, founder of the movement for the rights of black citizens in the United States. During a December 1, 1955 bus trip in Montgomery, Rose refused to give up her seat to a white passenger in the colored section of the bus when all the seats in the white section were full. This event led to a massive boycott of public transport by the black population and brought national fame to Rosa Lee Parks. The U.S. Congress honored her with the epithet "Mother of the modern civil rights movement."

Sofia Ionescu

An eminent Romanian neurosurgeon, it is generally accepted that Sofia was one of the first female neurosurgeons in the world.

Anne Frank

Maud Wagner

First known American female tattoo artist. Now, maybe there is nothing outstanding in how densely her body is covered with tattoos, but think for a moment how provocative it looked in 1907!

Nadia Comaneci

World famous Romanian gymnast. From early childhood, Nadia Comaneci was engaged in gymnastics and enjoyed it a lot. According to the athlete herself, playing sports gave her more opportunities than her peers, because already at the age of 9-10 she visited many countries of the world. Comaneci went down in history as a five-time Olympic champion, the first in the history of gymnastics to receive 10 points for her performance.

Sara Thakral

The first female pilot in Indian history. Sarah received her license at the age of 21.

Mother Teresa (Agnes Gonje Boyagiu)

World-famous Catholic nun, founder of the women's monastic congregation "Missionary Sisters of Love", engaged in serving the poor and sick. From the age of 12, Gonja began to dream of becoming a monk and going to India to take care of the poor. In 1931, she took the tonsure and took the name Thérèse, after the canonized Carmelite nun Thérèse of Lisieux. For about 20 years she taught at the St. Mary's Girls' School in Calcutta, and in 1946 she received permission to help the poor and disadvantaged - to create schools, shelters, hospitals for the poor and seriously ill people, regardless of their nationality and religion. In 1979, Mother Teresa was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize "for her work in helping a suffering person."

Ana Aslan

Romanian researcher who directed her activities to combat aging. Aslan founded the only Institute of Gerontology and Geriatrics in Bucharest in Bucharest and developed a drug for elderly people suffering from arthritis, thanks to which they began to recover - they began to walk, regained strength, flexibility and were even able to return to work and play sports. Ana also created the drug "Aslavital for children", intended for the treatment of childhood dementia.

Annette Kellerman

Australian professional swimmer. At the age of 6, Annette was diagnosed with leg disease and to overcome her disability, her parents enrolled her in a swimming school in Sydney. At the age of 13, her legs were practically normal and at the age of 15 she began to participate in swimming competitions. In 1905, 18-year-old Annette became the first woman to dare to cross the English Channel. After three unsuccessful attempts, she stated: "I had stamina, but not enough brute strength". Annette also encouraged women to be allowed to wear one-piece bathing suits (1907). After this photo, by the way, she was arrested for indecent behavior.

Rita Levi-Montalcini

Italian neuroscientist, Nobel laureate, which she received for the discovery of growth factors. She decided to put her life on the altar of science and never regretted her choice, constantly emphasizing that her life is "rich in excellent human relationships, work and hobbies." The researcher continued her active work after her retirement. Rita Levi-Montalcini even established a special charity fund to help women from third world countries get higher education. She became the first woman admitted to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences; and in 2001 she was appointed Senator for Life of the Italian Republic.

Bertha von Sutner

Austrian leader of the international pacifist movement. In 1889, her book "Down with weapons!" (“Die Waffen nieder”) tells about the life of a young woman whose fate was crippled by the European wars of the 60s. 19th century The world spoke about her as a leading fighter for peace. At a time when women hardly took part in public life, Zutner, an active fighter for peace, gained universal respect, including Alfred Nobel, with whom she corresponded, informing him of the activities of pacifist organizations and agitating to donate funds to peacekeeping activities. In 1905, Bertha became the first woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize and the second woman to receive the Nobel Prize.

Irena Sendler

During World War II, Irena Sendler, an employee of the Warsaw Health Department and a member of the Polish underground organization (under the pseudonym Iolanthe), often visited the Warsaw ghetto, where she monitored sick children. Under this cover, she and her comrades took 2,500 children out of the ghetto. Irena Sendler wrote down the data of all the rescued children on narrow strips of thin paper and hid this list in a glass bottle. According to an anonymous denunciation in 1943, she was sentenced to death, but she was saved. Until the end of the war, Irena Sendler was in hiding, but continued to help Jewish children.

Gertrude Caroline

First woman to swim across the English Channel (1926). "Queen of the Waves" - that's what they called her in the USA. She crossed the canal breaststroke, spending 14 hours and 39 minutes on it.

Hedy Lamarr

Popular in the 1930s and 1940s, Austrian and later American film actress and inventor. Her story is one of those that would be accused of implausibility if something like this were written for a feature film: a mysterious Hollywood star from Europe and an avant-garde composer (speaking of George Entile) together come up with a new way to encode signals that prevent them from being jammed. Lamarr, whose film career continued after World War II, not only saved many ships of the US Navy from enemy torpedoes (her technology was rediscovered and began to be widely used already in the 1960s, starting with the Cuban Missile Crisis), but also became the progenitor of Wi-Fi standards and bluetooth.

Ada Lovelace

British mathematician, considered the first programmer in history. At the very beginning of her studies in mathematics, she met Charles Babyge, a mathematician and economist who connected his life with the idea of ​​​​creating an "analytical engine" - the world's first digital computer with program control. Mankind had to live for more than a century to understand the great meaning and significance of Bebidzh's idea, but Ada immediately appreciated the invention of her good friend and, together with him, tried to substantiate and show what it promises to humanity. Her hand wrote programs strikingly similar to the programs compiled later for the first computers. By the way, Ada is the daughter of the famous poet George Gordon Byron.

Ludmila Pavlichenko

The legendary female sniper in world history hails from Belaya Tserkov. During the Second World War, she participated in the battles in Moldova, in the defense of Odessa and Sevastopol. In June 1942, Lyudmila was seriously wounded, after which she was evacuated, and then, together with a delegation, was sent to the United States. During her visit overseas, Pavlichenko attended a reception with US President Franklin Roosevelt and even lived in the White House for some time at the invitation of his wife. Many will forever remember her speech in Chicago: “Gentlemen, I am twenty-five years old. At the front, I have already managed to destroy three hundred and nine fascist invaders. Don't you gentlemen think you've been hiding behind my back for too long?!

Rosalind Franklin

Rosalind Franklin's role in the discovery of the structure of DNA, considered by many to be the key scientific achievement of the 20th century, has been downplayed for many decades (which was greatly facilitated by Franklin's early death from cancer). Despite the fact that the decision of the Nobel Committee, which deprived Rosalind of her role of the prize and noted only James Watson, Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins, cannot be canceled, the truth is true: it was Franklin's X-ray diffraction analysis of DNA that was the missing step that made it possible to finally visualize the double helix .

Jane Goodall

The famous English ethologist Jane Goodall spent more than 30 years in the jungles of Tanzania in the Gombe Stream valley, observing the behavior of chimpanzees. She began her research in 1960, when she was 18 years old. At the beginning of her work, she had no assistants and, in order not to leave her alone, her mother went to Africa with her. They pitched a tent by the lake and Jane bravely began her wonderful explorations. Later, when the whole world became interested in her data, she had close contacts with scientists who came to her from different countries. Today, Goodall is the United Nations Peace Ambassador, a leading primatologist, ethologist and anthropologist from the UK.

Billie Jean King

The famous American tennis player, the record holder for the number of victories at the Wimbledon tournament. On her initiative, the World Women's Tennis Association was created with its own calendar and prize money, no less than in men's tennis. Trying to establish equal rights for women in sports, in 1973 King held an exhibition match with the former first racket of the world, 55-year-old Bobby Riggs, who spoke unflatteringly about the level of women's tennis. King won a resounding victory and literally crushed Riggs. Since that moment, according to many experts, tennis has become one of the most popular sports among spectators, almost a national religion in the United States.

Rachel Carson

Rachel Carson, an American biologist, became world-famous for her book "Silent Spring", dedicated to the harmful effects of pesticides on living organisms. After the publication of the book, Rachel Carson was immediately accused by representatives of the chemical industry and some members of the government of alarmism. She was called a "hysterical woman", incompetent to write such books. However, despite these reproaches, the book is considered the initiator of the development of a new environmental movement.

Grace Hopper

American scientist and rear admiral of the United States Navy. A pioneer in her field, she was one of the first to write programs for the Harvard computer. She also developed the first compiler for a computer programming language, developed the concept of machine-independent programming languages, which led to the creation of COBOL, one of the first high-level programming languages. By the way, it is Grace who is credited with popularizing the term debugging to fix computer malfunctions.

Maria Teresa de Philippis

Italian race car driver. First woman to become a Formula 1 driver. At the age of 28, she became the second in the national championship of Italy in ring racing. She made her Formula One debut in 1958, placing fifth at the Syracuse Grand Prix, an off-the-record race. The first race of the championship for Marie-Thérèse de Philippis in the same year was the Monaco Grand Prix. She failed to qualify, but she was ahead of many men, including future Formula 1 functionary Bernie Ecclestone.

Anna Lee Fisher

The first mother is an astronaut. Her daughter Krisny Ann was just over one year old at the time of her shuttle Discovery flight as a flight specialist.

Stephanie Kwolek

Polish American chemist who invented Kevlar. For 40 years of work as a research scientist, she received, according to various sources, from 17 to 28 patents. In 1995, she became the fourth woman to be inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame, and in 2003 she was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame.

Malala Yousafzai

Pakistani human rights activist. Malala became an activist at the age of 11 when she started blogging for the BBC about life in the Taliban-occupied city of Mingora. In 2012, they tried to kill her for her activities and statements, but doctors saved the girl. In 2013, she released her autobiography and gave a speech at the UN Headquarters, and in 2014 she received the Nobel Peace Prize, becoming the youngest recipient (17 years old).

Generator simulator from the original experiment

regine debatty / Flickr

Polish scientists repeated the famous Milgram experiment on their compatriots. It turned out that the Poles of the 2010s were ready to hurt people, submitting to authority, no less than the Americans of the 1960s. The results of the work were published in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science in January 2017, a press release issued in March drew attention to them.

One of the most respected psychologists of the 20th century, Stanley Milgram, conducted his classic experiment in 1963, inspired by the crimes of the Nazis during World War II. He wanted to find out how much suffering ordinary people can inflict on others if it is part of their duty. To do this, the scientist invited average people to participate in an experiment whose goal was to study the effect of pain on learning.

During the experiment, participants drew fake lots to play the role of teacher or student. In fact, they always got the role of the teacher, and the student was portrayed by a professional actor. The student had to memorize pairs of words, and then reproduce them at the command of the teacher. At the same time, the teacher had at his disposal a plausible-looking current generator with 30 switches from 15 to 450 volts in steps of 15 volts. For each error, the white-coated experimenter in charge of the work told the teacher to give the student an electric shock, with each subsequent error increasing the voltage by 15 volts. The actor feigned an increasing pain reaction, but the experimenter insisted on continuing the "learning" by uttering four consecutive phrases: "Please continue", "The experiment requires you to continue", "It is absolutely necessary that you continue", and "You have no other choice. you must continue." If the maximum tension was reached, it was applied three times, after which the session was terminated. Before the start of the experiment, the teacher himself was given a demonstration shock with a voltage of 45 volts.

Experiment design: E - experimenter, T - teacher, L - student

Wikimedia Commons

The American experiment was supposed to serve only as a debugging of the methodology, after which Milgram planned to conduct it in Germany in order to better understand the psychology of the citizens of this country during the war. However, the results were very telling: on average, 65 percent of the participants, obeying the authority of the experimenter, brought the punishment of the student to the maximum, despite his "pain" and protests. Only about 12 percent stopped at 300 volts when the actor began to portray unbearable suffering. “I found so much obedience that I don’t see the need to conduct this experiment in Germany,” the scientist said.

The Milgram experiment has been replicated multiple times in the US, Holland, Germany, Spain, Italy, Austria, and Jordan with similar results (average completion rate in the US was 61 percent and outside of it was 66 percent, with a range of 28 to 91 percent). Small changes in the design of the study, designed to exclude the influence of such factors as gender, social status, the authority of the scientific center, ignorance of the danger of current and possible sadistic inclinations, did not significantly affect the results, as did the year of the work. Such experiments have not yet been carried out in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe.

Employees of the University of Social Sciences and Humanities in Wroclaw decided to rectify this situation. “Our goal was to check how high the level of obedience is among the people of Poland. The special history of the Central European region has made the issue of obedience to authorities extremely interesting for us,” they write.

To reduce the psychological trauma of the participants, the scientists used a modification of the experiment based on the findings of the American psychologist Jerry Berger (Jerry Burger). He noted that the majority (79 percent) of the participants in the original work who made it to the 10th switch also made it to the last, 30th. Therefore, the level of submission can also be judged by the first 10 indicators of the impact stress. This design was used by Polish psychologists to make the experiment more ethical. 40 men and 40 women aged 18 to 69 were invited to participate in it.

90 percent of the participants, obeying the authority of the experimenter, reached the last switch. The frequency of failure to complete the experiment was three times higher if the role of the student was performed by a woman, however, the authors note that due to the small sample size, it is impossible to draw unambiguous conclusions from this.

“Our study has once again demonstrated the enormous power of the situation in which people find themselves, and how easily they agree to things that are unpleasant for themselves. Half a century after Milgram's work, an astonishing majority of subjects are still ready to shock a helpless person, ”commented the results of one of the authors of the work Tomasz Grzyb (Tomasz Grzyb).

Maria Sklodowska-Curie($1867 - $1934) - French (Polish) experimental scientist (physicist, chemist), teacher, public figure. Awarded the Nobel Prize: in physics and in chemistry, the first twice Nobel laureate in history.

Biography

Remark 1

Maria Sklodowska, better known as Marie Curie, was born in Warsaw in present-day Poland $7$ November $1867$.

Her parents were teachers and she was the youngest of five children. When Maria was $10$ years old, she began her studies at an all-girls high school. Then she was educated at the third women's gymnasium, which she graduated in $1883 with a gold medal. She spent another year in the countryside with her father's family, where she helped him rehabilitate his physical and mental strength after the painful experiences associated with the death of his mother and sister. After returning to Warsaw, she gave private lessons in mathematics, physics, foreign languages ​​(she knew Polish, Russian, German, English and French).

In $1891$, Maria finally went to Paris, where she entered the Sorbonne University. She threw herself into research, but it cost money. Curie survived by saving a lot of money, and subsisted on buttered bread and tea. Her health sometimes suffered due to her poor diet.

Curie received her master's degree in physics in $1893$ and received another degree in mathematics the following year.

At the Sorbonne, she met Pierre Curie, who was also a teacher. Maria and Pierre quickly found common topics for conversation. $26$ July $1895$, Maria Sklodowska and Pierre Curie entered into a legal marriage without a wedding ring and a priest. The ceremony was accompanied only by immediate family and a few friends.

Marie Curie had two daughters, Irene and Eva. Irene continued the family tradition of scientific research. Together with her husband, Frédéric Joliot, she received the $1935 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Eva is the author of a famous biography about her mother. She became a United States citizen and died in New York at the age of $102.

Remark 2

In $1934, Marie Curie went to a sanatorium in Passy, ​​France, to try to rest and recuperate. She died there on July 4, $1934, of aplastic anemia, which may be caused by prolonged exposure to radiation.

Marie Curie made many breakthroughs during her lifetime. She is the most famous female scientist of all time, and has received numerous posthumous honors.

Scientific achievements

Marie and Pierre Curie were devoted to scientific work, and also completely devoted to each other. First, they worked on separate projects. She was fascinated by the work of Henri Becquerel, a French physicist who discovered that uranium casts off rays much weaker than the X-rays found by Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen. Curie took Becquerel's work a few steps further by doing her own experiments on uranium rays. She found that the rays remained the same regardless of the state or shape of the uranium.

The couple discovered a new radioactive element in $1898$. They named the element polonium. They also discovered the presence of another radioactive material, and named it radium.

Remark 3

Marie Curie made history in $1903 when she became the first woman to win the Nobel Prize in Physics. She received the prestigious award, along with her husband and Henri Becquerel, for their work on radioactivity.

In $1906, Marie Curie had a huge grief. Her husband Pierre Curie died in an accident in Paris. Despite her great grief, she took over her teaching position at the Sorbonne, becoming the university's first female professor.

Remark 4

Marie Curie received another great honor in $1911 when she won a second Nobel Prize, this time in the field of chemistry.

When World War I broke out in $1914, Curie devoted her time and resources to helping the military. She advocated the use of portable X-ray machines in the field, and these medical vehicles were nicknamed " Little curies".

Moscow, March 7 - “Vesti. Economy". Today, on the eve of International Women's Day, we remember those women who have become pioneers in their field. These women have changed the world and made it a little bit better for future generations. Each triumph of these women has become a historically significant event. Valentina Tereshkova Valentina Tereshkova - Soviet cosmonaut, the world's first female cosmonaut (1963), Hero of the Soviet Union (1963). Pilot-cosmonaut of the USSR No. 6 (call sign - "Seagull"), 10th cosmonaut of the world. The only woman in the world who made a space flight alone. Tereshkova made her space flight (the world's first flight of a female cosmonaut) on June 16, 1963 on the Vostok-6 spacecraft, it lasted almost three days. The start took place at Baikonur not from the "Gagarin" site, but from a backup. At the same time, the Vostok 5 spacecraft piloted by cosmonaut Valery Bykovsky was in orbit. On the day of her flight into space, Tereshkova told her relatives that she was leaving for paratrooper competitions, they learned about the flight from the news on the radio. May Carol Jemison May Carol Jemison is a physician and former NASA astronaut. She became the first African-American woman to fly into space, flying into orbit aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavor in September 1992. Mae Jemison was enrolled in the 12th Astronaut Recruitment, becoming the first African-American woman to be selected by NASA. Upon completion of the training course, she received in August 1988 the qualification of a flight specialist. She was assigned software testing at the Shuttle Electronics Integration Laboratory (SAIL). Her first and only flight aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavor took place from 12 to 20 September 1992. Its total duration was 7 days, 22 hours, 31 minutes and 11 seconds. Wilma Mankiller

Photo: edittres.com Wilma Mankiller - the first woman to become the leader of the Cherokee tribe. She served as paramount chief for ten years, from 1985 to 1995. In 1983, 38-year-old Wilma was elected deputy chief of the Cherokee tribe, then Ross Swimmer, who held the post for the third consecutive term. In 1985, Swimmer retired to head the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and Wilma Mankiller became the first female Cherokee paramount chief. Marie Curie Marie Curie - French and Polish experimental scientist (physicist, chemist), teacher, social activist. Awarded the Nobel Prize: in physics (1903) and in chemistry (1911), the first twice Nobel laureate in history. She founded the Curie Institutes in Paris and Warsaw. The wife of Pierre Curie, together with him was engaged in the study of radioactivity. Together with her husband, she discovered the elements radium and polonium. Sarah Thomas

Credit: Duane Burleson/AP Sarah Thomas became the first female referee in the US NFL in 2015. Despite her accomplishments, Sarah likes to say that you shouldn't treat her any differently. She does not like to draw attention to her person. Despite this, the personality of the first woman to become a football referee in American football is admirable. Aretha Franklin Aretha Franklin is an American rhythm and blues, soul and gospel singer. She achieved her greatest success in the second half of the 1960s and early 1970s. Due to her exceptionally flexible and strong vocals, she is often called the queen of soul. On January 3, 1987, she became the first woman to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In November 2008, Rolling Stone magazine declared her the greatest female singer of all time. Junko Tabei Junko Tabei is a Japanese mountaineer. The first woman to set foot on the top of Chomolungma (May 16, 1975), also conquered the Annapurna, Shishabangma eight-thousanders, was awarded the Order of the Kingdom of Nepal. One of the strongest climbers in the world. Victoria Woodhull Victoria Woodhull is an American social activist, suffragist, and one of the leaders of the women's suffrage movement. Woodhull was a supporter of the concept of the so-called "free love", by which she meant the freedom to marry, divorce and have children without government intervention. She was an anti-slavery activist, an activist for women's rights and labor law reform, and the first woman to found a weekly newspaper. At the same time, she was fond of spiritualism and promoted vegetarianism; She played the stock market with her sister Tennessee Claflin. In 1872, she was the first female candidate for President of the United States (from the Equal Rights Party). Her running mate was black rights activist Frederick Douglas. Ann Dunwoody Ann Elizabeth Dunwoody is an American military figure and general in the US Army, known for being the first American woman to reach the four-star general rank. 17th Commander, U.S. Army Materiel Command, November 14, 2008 to August 7, 2012. Sandra Day O'Connor Sandra Day O'Connor is a member of the US Supreme Court, the first woman appointed to this post. Prior to her appointment as a judge of the US Supreme Court, she worked in elected government positions as a judge. She became the first female Republican majority leader in the Arizona Senate Vanessa Williams Vanessa Lynn Williams is an American singer, songwriter, producer, actress and model who made history in 1984 when she became the first black woman to be crowned Miss America. For her contribution to musical culture, she was awarded her own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Nancy Pelosi Nancy Pelosi is an American Democratic politician, leader of the Minority Caucus in the US House of Representatives and member of the House of Representatives (since 1987) from California's 12th congressional district. The district includes most of the city of San Francisco, and was previously numbered 5 (until 1993) and 8 (1993-2013). On January 4, 2007, Pelosi was elected President (Speaker) of the U.S. House of Representatives, becoming the first woman on this post in the history of the United States. The Democrats then regained their majority in the lower house of the US Parliament after twelve years in opposition. She also became the most senior woman in American history, taking the third most important position in the US power structure after the president and vice president. Edith Wharton Edith Wharton is an American writer and designer who won the Pulitzer Prize. During World War I, Wharton worked as a journalist, traveling along the front lines. She reflected her military trips in numerous articles. For active assistance to refugees by the French government in 1916, she was awarded the Order of the Legion of Honor. Kathryn Bigelow Kathryn Bigelow is an American science fiction, action and horror film director and producer. Two-time Golden Globe nominee, BAFTA and Oscar winner for The Hurt Locker (2009), the first woman to win an Oscar for Best Director. Carly Fiorina Carly Fiorina is an American businesswoman and politician, former President and CEO of Hewlett-Packard Corporation (1999-2005). In 1998, Fortune magazine published the first ranking of the most powerful women in business, in which Carly Fiorina took first place and retained it until October 2004. When Fiorina took over HP, she became the only woman CEO in the Dow Jones Industrial Average and one of the Fortune 50. Regina Ionas Regina Ionas is the world's first ordained practicing female rabbi. In 1930 she graduated from the liberal "High School of Judaica" in Berlin, received a diploma as a teacher of religion. In 1935, an Offenbach rabbi and head of the "Union of Liberal Rabbis". Dr. Max Dineman ordained Regina Jonas as a rabbi after an appropriate examination. From 1935 to 1942 she remained in Berlin, from 1938 she led services in many Jewish communities in what is now Northwestern Germany and Poland, whose rabbis had managed to emigrate by that time. On November 6, 1942, together with her elderly mother, Regina Ionas was deported to the Theresienstadt concentration camp. There she continued her preaching work and was an assistant to another prisoner - the Viennese psychoanalyst Viktor Frankl, who created an underground "Referat" in the camp for psychological support of prisoners, the so-called. "Abstract of mental hygiene." On October 12, 1944, Jonas was transferred to Auschwitz, where she died on December 12, 1944. Sirimavo Bandaranaike Sirimavo Bandaranaike - Prime Minister of Sri Lanka in 1960-1965, 1970-1977, 1994-2000 ; the world's first female prime minister. Having won a landslide victory in the elections, from July 1960 - Prime Minister, Minister of Defense and Foreign Affairs. She became the world's first female prime minister in recent history. Her government pursued a policy of democratization of the political system and progressive economic reforms, engaged in the nationalization of foreign oil companies, as well as the development of a system of religious schools. Ella Fitzgerald Ella Fitzgerald is an American singer, one of the greatest vocalists in the history of jazz music, the owner of a voice with a range of three octaves, a master of scat and voice improvisation. 13-time Grammy Award winner; laureate of the National Medal of Arts (USA, 1987), Presidential Medal of Freedom (USA, 1992), Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters (France, 1990) and many other honorary awards. During her 50-year career, she has released about 90 albums and collections - both solo and created in collaboration with other famous jazz musicians. Elizabeth Blackwell Elizabeth Blackwell is the first woman to receive a medical degree in the United States and is included in the UK Medical Register. For the first time, the idea of ​​obtaining a medical education came to Elizabeth's mind after the death of her friend from the disease. This friend said that a woman could probably make the treatment process more comfortable, and Elizabeth herself thought that women could be good doctors because of their maternal instincts.