HistoryExtra
type: channel
link: https://www.historyextra.com
description: Home of Britain’s bestselling history magazine and award-winning podcast
date: 2025-10-02T13:25:03.000Z
update period: hourly
update frequency: 1
update base: 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00
items: 100 women who changed the world

100 women who changed the world
type: item
date: 2018-08-09T08:00:38.000Z
subject: 100 women
subject: 20th Century
subject: Ancient Egypt
subject: Ancient Greece
subject: Roman
subject: Second World War
subject: Victorian
subject: Period
subject: British queens
subject: Evergreen
description: Which women have had the biggest impact on world history? We asked you to vote on a shortlist of 100 figures selected by 10 experts. Here are 100 of the most influential and important women in history – both famous and lesser-known – that have changed the world…
encoded: Which women are the most influential in history? Which female figures have had significant impact on past events? Welcome to the results of our BBC History Magazine poll, which features 100 inspirational women from history. In 2018, we asked experts in 10 different fields of human endeavour to nominate 10 women they believe had the biggest impact on world history. We then gave you, our readers, the opportunity to vote for your favourite figures from that list. The results – presented here – may well provoke debate… (For more influential people, you can explore 100 of the most famous people through history – in chronological order) Marie Curie, 1867–1934 Marie Curie changed the world not once but twice. She founded the new science of radioactivity – even the word was invented by her – and her discoveries launched effective cures for cancer. "Curie boasts an extraordinary array of achievements," says Patricia Fara, president of the British Society for the History of Science, who nominated the Polish-born French scientist. "She was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, first female professor at the University of Paris, and the first person - note the use of person there, not woman - to win a second Nobel Prize." Born in Warsaw, Curie studied physics at university in Paris where she met her future research collaborator and husband, Pierre. Together they identified two new elements: radium and polonium, named after her native Poland. After he died, she raised a small fortune in the US and Europe to fund laboratories and to develop cancer treatments. Marie Curie was a woman of action as well as enormous intellect. During the First World War, she helped to equip ambulances with x-ray equipment, and often drove them to the front line herself. Read more | Marie Curie: her life, achievements and legacy "The odds were always stacked against her," says Fara. "In Poland her patriotic family suffered under a Russian regime. In France she was regarded with suspicion as a foreigner…

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