Most Influential Women In History: BBC Poll

Aug. 11, 2018

Nobel prize-winning scientist Marie Curie has been voted as the most influential woman in history, in a poll conducted by BBC named “List of 100 women who changed the world”.

Marie Curie (1867–1934):

  • Marie Curie was a Polish and Naturalized-French physicist and chemist.

  • Work: Her achievements included the
    • development of the theory of radioactivity (a term that she coined),

    • development of techniques for isolating radioactive isotopes,

    • discovery of two elements, radium and polonium (named after her native Poland) and

    • Overseeing the world's first studies into the treatment of neoplasms using radioactive isotopes.



  • Nobel prizes:
    • She was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, the first person and only woman to win twice, the only person to win a Nobel Prize in two different sciences.

    • She shared the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics with her husband Pierre Curie and with physicist Henri Becquerel. She won the 1911 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.



Indian woman in the list:

Name

Rank

Remarks by BBC

Mother Teresa 

(1910–97)

 

20

Mother Teresa, born in Albania, was a Roman Catholic nun who lived in India for most of her life.

In 1950 she founded the Missionaries of Charity for free service to the poorest of the poor. Her charitable work changed the lives of many of the most vulnerable people in over 130 countries.

Indira Gandhi

(1917–84)

 

49

India’s first and only female prime minister to date is remembered for her political steel and often controversial legacy.

She ruled the country on two occasions, from 1966 to 1977 and from 1980 until 1984.

Sarojini Naidu

(1879 –1949)

77

Sarojini Naidu, a freedom fighter and poet, was the first Indian woman to be president of the Indian National Congress and to be appointed an Indian state governor.

In 1917 she helped found the Women’s India Association and later played a leading role in the civil disobedience movement.

Amrita Priam

(1919–2005)

100

An Indian writer and essayist and a leading 20th-century poet in the Punjabi language. Her work is by turns feminist and deeply humanist.

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