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Home
100 Women Who Changed the World: the results

100 Women Who Changed the World: the results

We asked you to vote for the women you believe have had the biggest impact on world history, from a shortlist of 100 figures selected by 10 experts. Find out who topped our poll, and read more about what the experts made of the results below…

Which woman has had the biggest impact on world history?

100 Women Who Changed the World

The results of the poll: 100 women who changed the world. (Photos by Getty Images/Alamy)

100 Women Who Changed the World results: what the experts say

100 women who changed the world results. (Images by Getty Images)

100 Women Who Changed the World: your reactions

Read more about the 100 women in our poll…

CIRCA 1840: An Alfred Edward Chalon watercolor of Augusta Ada King-Noel, Countess of Lovelace (nee Ada Byron) daughter of Lord Byron circa 1940. (Photo by Donaldson Collection/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)

100 women: Business & Economics

(Original Caption) 4/8/1931-Philadelphia, Pennsylvania-Amelia Earhart in the cockpit of her autogiro after setting a new altitude record for women in planes of this type. She failed, however, to break Elinor Smith's record of 27,418 feet in a non-windmill type plane.

100 women: Exploration & Adventure

Boudicca. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

100 women: Military

PARIS, FRANCE - MARCH 29: Indian writer Amrita Pritam poses during portrait session held on March 29, 1983 in Paris, France. (Photo by Ulf Andersen/Getty Images)

100 women: Literature

Rachel Heyhoe Flint. (Photo by Reg Speller/Fox Photos/Getty Images)

100 women: Sport

Rosa Parks. (Photo by Don Cravens/The LIFE Images Collection/Getty Images)

100 women: Politics, Revolutionaries & Activists

Grace Hopper. (Photo by Bettmann/Getty Images)

100 women: Science & Technology

Jane Austen. (Photo by Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty Images)

100 women: Media & Culture

Mary Wollstonecraft.(Photo by The Print Collector/Getty Images)

100 women: Religion & Philosophy

Margaret Thatcher. (Photo by Tim Graham/Getty Images)

100 women: Leaders & Royalty

Women's history

Read more women's history articles from BBC History Magazine

Mosaic in the Roman villa of Casale, near Piazza Armerina, Sicily, Italy, showing women exercising. (Photo by Peter Thompson/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

7 things you (probably) didn’t know about Roman women

L to R: Marie Antoinette of France, Njinga of Ndongo and Matamba, Hurrem (also known as Roxelana)

Queens know best: survival lessons from powerful historical women

Test pilot Melitta Schiller (right), Berlin, June 1943. (Photo by DRK/ullstein bild via Getty Images)

Second World War

The women who flew for Hitler: an interview with Clare Mulley

Podcast Website large Sarah Jackson

Restoring women’s voices

Two members of the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps find another use for discarded helmets in France during the First World War. (Alamy)

First World War

Female Tommies: women in the First World War

A woman casts her vote, accompanied by her children, in December 1918. Women weren't as

The Library Female suffrage: Victory at last!

Read more women's history

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