Hypatia (born c. 350-370 - died 415 AD) was a Greek philosopher, astronomer, and mathematician who lived in Alexandria, Egypt. She was a daughter of Theon of Alexandria, a mathematician who was the head of a school called the "Mouseion" and who edited Euclid’s Elements.
Hypatia received her first education in Alexandria and then studied in Athens. There, she studied the works of Plato and Aristotle. And then, having returned to Alexandria, Hypatia began to teach students from all over the Mediterranean. She quickly became renowned as a great teacher and a wise counselor.
Hypatia was a prominent thinker of the Neoplatonic school in Alexandria and supported the original Neoplatonic principles formulated by Plotinus, a major Greek-speaking philosopher of the ancient world at that time.
It was not the best time for philosophy. During the reign of Constantine, Christianity became the dominant religion, and the traditional Hellenistic religion and culture became outlawed and persecuted. In 391, the Serapeum of Alexandria, an Ancient Greek temple, was destroyed with all the books in it. In 394, Emperor Theodosius abolished the Olympic Games, thus ending the ancient tradition that had existed for more than a thousand years. Fanatical mobs were destroying ancient monuments and temples, slashing and burning everything that somehow reminded them of the hated Greco-Roman world.
It took a big deal of courage for this young, delicate woman to keep teaching. In part, she was helped by the fact that from 382 to 412, the bishop of Alexandria was Theophilus, who ruled the local Christian community with an iron hand. Even though he was opposed to Neoplatonism, he was friends with Hypatia. This was one of the reasons she became so popular in Alexandria.
After the death of Theophilus, his nephew Cyril became the new bishop. Cyril pursued a tough policy of establishing Christianity and eradicating the last remnants of the ancient culture. Unlike Theophilus, he was an avowed enemy of Hypatia and even stooped as low as spreading rumours that Hypatia was a witch.
Cyril closed the churches of the Novatianists, who supported his opponent Timothy, and he confiscated their property. Then he closed synagogues in Alexandria, confiscated all the property belonging to Jews, and expelled them from the city. Even Orestes, the Roman prefect in Alexandria, sent a report to the emperor and complained about Cyril.
In March 415, during the Christian season of Lent, a crowd of religious fanatics under the leadership of one Peter raided Hypatia's carriage when she was travelling home. The crowd pulled Hypatia out of the carriage, beat her, and dragged her to a Christian church. There, the mob stripped Hypatia naked and murdered her with sharp ostraka, which are pieces of pottery. Her body was torn apart, and the remains burned in the fire.
The murder of Hypatia is often considered to be an event that marked the end of classical antiquity and the final decay of the intellectual life of Alexandria.

Hypatia was known as an inventor. She invented the following devices:
Astrolabe - a device for determining the latitudes and longitudes in astronomy, which was used to determine the location of the sun, stars, and planets;
Planisphere - a star chart analog computing instrument, which displays the visible stars for any time and date and helps recognize stars and constellations;
Hydrometer - a device for determining the relative density of fluid.
Hypatia edited the existing text of Book III of Ptolemy's Almagest and wrote a commentary on Diophantus's thirteen-volume Arithmetica.
Hypatia was also renowned as a talented scientist and teacher. People from different parts of the world came to Alexandria, where she was teaching mathematics and astronomy.

Interesting facts about Hypatia:
Hypatia herself adhered to the traditional Hellenistic religion, although many of her students were Christians.
At some point Hypatia had great political influence in Alexandria.
According to Damascius, Hypatia remained a lifelong virgin.

She lived so unimaginably long ago that even for the Egyptians of Nefertiti’s generation her time was seen as a distant antiquity. She lived when the pyramids had just started being built. It was seven centuries before the Babylonian King Hammurabi compiled his famous Code of Laws, eleven centuries before King Tut was born, and twenty-four centuries before Julius Caesar was assassinated in Rome.
Peseshet was the lady overseer of the female physicians of the royal court of ancient Egypt somewhere around 2400 BC, and was the earliest recorded female doctor and one of the first female scientists. She probably specialized in obstetrics, healing with herbs, and spiritual rituals, like other well-known female doctors from Egypt. Being a doctor in Ancient Egypt was a tremendous honor and almost always meant the highest rank in society, usually a Priest or Priestess.
Her name was discovered in the inscription in the tomb in the necropolis near the step pyramid of Saqqara. The tomb most likely belonged to her son, who himself had a title of the Priest Overseer, and Peseshet was among those whom he proudly acknowledged. If he was indeed her son, she obviously raised a good one.

The great Russian poet Pushkin once called her Eumenides—goddess of vengeance. She did not move armies like Jeanne d’Arc or spread her faith like St. Catherine. Her only mission was to rid France of a tyrant, avenging his victims and preventing him from committing new crimes. It was her sole mission, and she brought her own life to its altar selflessly and courageously.

Marie-Anne-Charlotte de Corday d'Armont, known as Charlotte Corday, was born 27 July 1768 in Saint-Saturnin-des-Ligneries, in the French province of Normandy, to a minor aristocratic family. She was a descendant of the famous French dramatist Pierre Corneille.

When Charlotte was fourteen years old, she lost her mother and her older sister. Her grief-stricken father sent her and her younger sister to the Abbaye aux Dames convent in Caen. While living there, Charlotte was allowed to read not only spiritual books, but also the writings of Plutarch, Rousseau, and Voltaire. Those books had a great influence on the impressionable and intelligent girl, and they made her a "Republican well before the revolution,” by her own words. In 1790, the monastery was closed, and in the beginning of 1791, Charlotte returned to her father’s house.

The enthusiasm with which she met the first years of the great Revolution gradually evaporated as events turned ugly. “Revolutions are often initiated by idealists, carried out by fanatics, and hijacked by scoundrels,” as was once observed by Thomas Carlyle, and the French Revolution was not an exception. Through violence and scheming, a coterie of pathological murderers replaced the initial revolutionary leadership. The bacchanalia of mass killings and executions swept the country. The infamous September Massacres of 1792 and the execution of King Louis XVI terribly shocked Charlotte, and a sense that some unspeakable evil was now threatening the very future of the Republic completely overwhelmed her. She decided to take matters into her own hands.

For Charlotte the evil was personified by Jean-Paul Marat, the main ideologue of the ruling Jacobins. A sophisticated demagogue and a ruthless radical, he was an inspiration behind the Terror, and was seen by many as a man responsible for the bloody nightmare that descended on their once beautiful country.

Charlotte Corday being escorted to her execution, by Arturo Michelena (1889). The warden carries the red blouse which will be worn by Corday and the painter Hauer stands at the right.

The rest is well known. On 13 June 1793, Corday went to Marat’s home, claiming she had important information about an opposition revolt brewing in the city of Caen. At that time, Marat had a skin disorder, so he conducted most of his affairs while in a bathtub. After Marat wrote down the names of Girondins that Corday gave to him, she stabbed him with a knife. The blow was delivered with astounding precision, the knife struck his carotid artery, and he died in seconds. Charlotte was arrested on the spot.

At the trial, held on the morning of July 17, she was defended by the famous jurist Chauveau-Lagarde, the future defence attorney of Marie Antoinette, the Girondists, and Madame Roland. Charlotte behaved with such calm and composure that it deeply impressed everyone present. Once interrogated, she stated she had no associates. The public prosecutor demanded the death penalty for Corday. The jury unanimously found her guilty and sentenced her to death.

Charlotte Corday, painted at her request by Jean-Jacques Hauer, a few hours before her execution.

While waiting for the execution, Charlotte posed for the artist Hauer, who painted her portrait while she talked with him on various topics. As a farewell gift, she gave Hauer a lock of her hair.

By court order, she was to be executed in a red shirt, clothes reserved specifically for assassins. Putting on the shirt, Corday said, "It is the toilet of death, but it leads to immortality."

Charlotte was executed at 7:30 in the evening on July 17 at the Place de la Revolution. According to Sanson, her executioner, he almost never encountered such courage in those sentenced to death. All the way from the Conciergerie prison to the place of execution, she stood in a cart, refusing to sit down. When they arrived, Sanson tried to block the guillotine from Charlotte’s view; she asked him to move away, because, as she said, she had never seen this structure before and was curious to see it.

The day before her death, Charlotte wrote to her father:

“Pardonnez-moi, mon cher papa, d’avoir disposé de mon existence sans votre permission. J’ai vengé bien d’innocentes victimes, j’ai prévenu bien d’autres désastres. Le peuple, un jour désabusé, se réjouira d’être délivré d’un tyran. Si j’ai cherché à vous persuader que je passais en Angleterre, c’est que j’espérais garder l’incognito, mais j’en ai reconnu l’impossibilité. J’espère que vous ne serez point tourmenté. En tout cas, je crois que vous auriez des défenseurs à Caen. J’ai pris pour défenseur Gustave Doulcet : un tel attentat ne permet nulle défense, c’est pour la forme. Adieu, mon cher papa, je vous prie de m’oublier, ou plutôt de vous réjouir de mon sort, la cause en est belle. J’embrasse ma sœur que j’aime de tout mon cœur, ainsi que tous mes parents. N’oubliez pas ce vers de Corneille: Le Crime fait la honte, et non pas l’échafaud! C’est demain à huit heures, qu’on me juge. Ce 16 juillet”

“Forgive me, my dear Daddy, for having ended my existence without your permission. I avenged many innocent victims; I prevented many other disasters. The people, when they become disillusioned someday, will rejoice to be rid of a tyrant. If I sought to persuade you that I was leaving for England, it's because I hoped to remain incognito, but I recognized its impossibility. I hope that you will not be tormented. In any case, I believe you will have defenders in Caen. I took Gustave Doulcet as my defender; a case like this permits no defense, so it is just a formality. Farewell, my dear Daddy. I beg you to forget me, or rather to rejoice at my fate, for the cause is beautiful. I embrace my sister, whom I love with all my heart, as well as my parents. Do not forget Corneille's verse: ‘The crime causes the shame, and not the scaffold!’ The judgement is tomorrow at 8 o'clock. This July 16.”

When you hear the expression “Against all odds,” some names come to your mind quite naturally, and Edmonia Lewis is definitely one of them. She was born on the 4th of July, 1844 in Greenbush, New York. Her father was Afro-Haitian and her mother was of Mississauga Ojibwe and African-American descent. Both parents died when she was nine years old, and Edmonia and her older half-brother Samuel were adopted by her mother’s relatives. They lived in Niagara Falls. Three years later, her brother left for San Francisco, California. Samuel not only insisted on going to school, but also paid for Edmonia’s tuition.

In 1856, Edmonia enrolled at New-York Central College, McGrawville, a Baptist abolitionist school. Three years later, in 1859, Edmonia was sent to Oberlin, Ohio, where she attended the secondary Oberlin Academy Preparatory School for the full, three-year course, before entering Oberlin College, one of the first US educational institutions to admit women of different ethnicities. At Oberlin College Edmonia became interested in sculpture and began her career in art.

During the winter term in 1862, just a few months after the beginning of the American Civil War, Edmonia went sleigh riding with her two college friends, Maria Miles and Christina Ennes, and invited them home for a drink. Soon after, Miles and Ennes became seriously ill. Doctors came to the conclusion that they were poisoned, and they were not even sure if the women would survive. A few days later, Miles and Ennes were feeling better, so the authorities did not take any measures.
Nevertheless, while Edmonia was walking home alone one night, she was dragged into an open field by unknown people, badly beaten, and left there.
After the attack the police arrested Lewis on charges of poisoning her friends. On behalf of the college, she was defended by a college graduate, the only African-American lawyer in Oberlin, John Mercer Langston. Although most witnesses testified against Lewis, and Lewis herself refused to testify, Langston managed to convince the court of her innocence.
About a year after the accident, Edmonia was accused of stealing artists' materials from the college, which led to being forbidden from registering for her last term by the principal of the Young Ladies' Course, Marianne Dascomb. Although Edmonia was acquitted due to lack of evidence, she was unable to graduate from the school.
After college, Lewis moved to Boston in 1864, where she began to pursue her career as a sculptor. A famous sculptor Edward Augustus Brackett, who specialized in marble portrait busts, became Edmonia’s instructor. Under his tutelage, she crafted her own sculpting tools and sold her first piece, a sculpture of a woman's hand, for $8. Working with Brackett, Edmonia met Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, the hero of the US Civil War, and created his sculpture.

In 1864 she opened her studio to the public in her first solo exhibition.

To continue her studies and practice, Edmonia moved to Rome in 1865. In Rome, she specialized in busts, opened her own workshop and gained fame: in Italy, her exotic appearance caused the opposite reaction rather than the one she faced in the United States. In Rome she developed her neoclassic technique. For example, she depicted the heroes of her sculptures not in modern clothes, but in ancient togas or draperies.

After some time Edmonia returned to the United States, where she continued sculptor work. Her works were sold for large sums of money. In 1873, an article appeared in the New Orleans Picayune newspaper stating that "Edmonia Lewis had snared two 50,000-dollar commissions". Her increased popularity has turned her studio into a popular place for tourists.
Edmonia had many major exhibitions during her rise to fame, including one in Chicago in 1870, in Rome in 1871, and in Philadelphia in 1876.

Among those whose busts she created at that time were the poet Henry Longfellow, the abolitionist John Brown, the politician Charles Sumner, president Abraham Lincoln, and others. The sculpture of Longfellow created by her was placed in the library of Harvard University.

In addition to busts, Edmonia created a number of famous sculptures, including Hagar in the Wilderness (1868), Hiawatha (1868), Marriage of Hiawatha (1866), Madonna and Child (1867), the Death of Cleopatra (1867).

Her sculpture "Forever Free", where she depicts a pair of African Americans breaking chains - one of the most famous works.

In the late 1880s, the genre of neoclassicism began to gradually lose its popularity, as did the popularity of Edmonia's artwork. The last years of her life were poorly studied, even the year of her death is controversial (it was believed that she died in 1890). Recent studies have shown that she lived in London until her death and died in 1907. Edmonia was never married and, as far as known, had no children. She devoted all her life to the beloved art.

Eva Dickson and Baron Blixen in Africa

Her life would probably be the best subject for an adventure movie. In her short life (March 8, 1905 – March 24, 1938) Eva Dickson had it all. She traveled the world, visited war zones, was a newspaper correspondent, wrote books, piloted planes, participated in crazy car races, had a passionate love story with a wealthy aristocrat. Besides, she was the first woman who crossed the Sahara desert by car.
Eva Dickson was born in Sweden to Albert Lindström, a successful horse breeder, and his wife Maria.
Being 20 years old, Eva married a race car driver Olof Dickson, but divorced him seven years later. The reason for the divorce was that Olof didn’t quite appreciate the adventurous nature of his wife.

Eva Dickson and Baron Blixen in Africa

Eve's travels attracted a lot of public attention. She has published several books about her experience, as well as several guides for travelers. Eva earned money for her journeys by making bets with various wealthy people.
In 1932, she traveled by car from Nairobi to Stockholm, becoming the first woman to drive through the entire Sahara desert.
In 1932, Eva met Baron Blixen, the former spouse of the writer Karen Blixen. They met in Kenya and soon became lovers. There, in Kenya, in 1932, Eva took part in various expeditions. The following year, he and Blixen went to Ethiopia, where Dickson wrote about the Abyssinian crisis as a war correspondent for the Swedish newspaper The Weekly Journal. From Ethiopia, they returned to Kenya, driving 2,000 km on mules.

Eva Dickson

In 1936, the couple got married. Eva and Blixen spent their honeymoon sailing on a yacht near Cuba and the Bahamas in the company of their friends Ernest Hemingway and Martha Gellhorn.
On June 3, 1937, Dickson went on a trip from Stockholm to Beijing, intending to fulfill her old dream and become the first person who single-handedly crossed the entire silk road by car. She crossed Germany, Poland, Romania, Turkey, Syria and Iran. When she reached Afghanistan, she was advised to make a detour through India, because the route through the Afghan mountains was considered too dangerous for a woman traveling alone. Upon reaching Calcutta, Eva suddenly fell ill, was treated with arsenic at the hospital, which only worsened her condition. Moreover, in Calcutta, she began to run out of money. And when she learned the news of the beginning of the Sino-Chinese War, Dickson realized that she would not be able to reach her destination. Despite her illness, she decided to go back to Europe all by herself. After miles and miles of desert and mountain roads she managed to get to Baghdad. By that time her trip had already lasted 9 months, so she decided to make a short stopover.
After a dinner outside Baghdad she drove back to town. She was driving on a treacherous bumpy road in almost total darkness, and when she missed a curve, the car went down bouncing and rolling. Eva was pinched between the seat and the steering wheel, broke the neck and died instantly.
As a soldier dies at the battlefield, or a captain of a ship dies at sea, Eva Dickson died on the journey.

Theano was a student and wife of the ancient Greek philosopher, great mathematician Pythagoras, who lived in VI - V centuries BC. Her very life is shrouded in mystery and became a subject of legends and myths. Some scholars even believe that there was more than one woman now identified as Theano, while others think that in fact it was only one person using various pseudonyms. Her only detailed biography was compiled by an ancient historian and chronicler Diogenes Laertius, who lived almost seven centuries later and who himself relied on various sources which are not known to us.

According to him, Theano was born circa 546 BC, probably on Crete. She is believed to be a daughter of Brontinus the Orphic, a member of a religious group worshiping Osiris.

Pythagoras teaching his female students

After returning from his travels, Pythagoras founded a school or, as is often called, a university in Crotone, a Dorian colony in South Italy. Pythagoras gathered a small group of devoted students, whom he taught philosophy, as well as the foundations of mathematics, music, and astronomy, which were considered by him to be a triangular basis for all arts and sciences. Besides this, Pythagoras taught techniques of meditation, self-awareness, self-control, self-esteem, and self-appreciation.

At the age of 60, Pythagoras married his student Theano, a wonderful beautiful girl who conquered the heart of a philosopher with her pure love, unlimited devotion and faith.

It is known that she was an important person at Pythagoras school. Some researchers believe that most of Pythagoras’ writings were made by Theano.

It’s known that Theano wrote about medicine, physics, mathematics and child psychology. Theano was an author of “Cosmology”, “The Theorem of the Golden Mean” (irrational numbers which appear in lots of aspects of nature are described), “The Theory of Numbers”, “The Construction of the Universe” (she created a theory about the universe and 10 concentric spheres), “On Virtue”, and Pythagoras’ biography “Life of Pythagoras.”

Their marriage turned out to be perfect. Theano became so enthusiastic about her husband’s works that after his death she became a leader of the Pythagorean school.

The family of Pythagoras was an example for the entire city, their house was regarded as a temple of goddess Demeter, and the courtyard was called a temple of Muses.

Theano gave birth to two sons and three daughters, who were faithful followers of their father’s philosophy. One of the sons subsequently became a teacher of Empedocles and introduced him to the Pythagorean education.

Being a proponent of the infinite universe, Theano believed in the immortality of human soul as its integral part. Metaphorically speaking she reached this immortality.

Akhenaten and Nefertiti with their children

There’s probably none in the educated world who have never heard her name. Nefertiti (c. 1370 - c. 1330 BC) was an Egyptian queen and the Great Royal Wife of the ancient Egyptian pharaoh Amenhotep IV (also known as Akhenaten) of the XVIII dynasty. Nefertiti, apparently, was a step-mother or a mother-in-law of pharaoh Tutankhamun.

In old Egyptian language her name meant “The Beautiful One Has Come.” Nefertiti has become one of the most famous women of the ancient world and an icon of feminine beauty because of her bust, which is currently on display in Neues Museum in Berlin. This bust is a great example of how skillful ancient Egyptian sculptors were in such a realistic reproduction of human faces. Nefertiti bust is believed to have been crafted in 1345 BC by the sculptor Thutmose, in whose workshop the bust was found.

Nefertiti and the Egyptian Pharaoh Amenhotep IV are known for their religious reform, which changed the ancient Egyptian polytheistic religion to a new, de facto monotheistic form called Atenism. This worship was dedicated to the Sun disc Aten.

Akhenaten

The new cult was established in the 4th year of Amenhotep’s reign (1346 BC). It is believed that in the same year he began the construction of the new capital - Akhetaten (known today as Amarna). In the 5th year, Amenhotep officially changed his name to Akhenaten in the respect of the new deity Aten. Since then Nefertiti was known as Neferneferuaten-Nefertiti.

In the 7th year of the reign (1343 BC), the capital was officially transferred from Thebes to Akhetaten, although the construction of the city, apparently, lasted for at least another two years (until 1341 BC).

During the reign of Akhenaten (and perhaps later) Nefertiti wielded an enormous power, there is even an evidence that somewhere in the 12th year of her husband's rule she received the status of a co-ruler, becoming equal to the Pharaoh himself. Her images on the walls of the temples are of the same size as Pharaoh’s, symbolizing her importance.

It is still a mystery what has happened to her after Akhenaten died. Some scholars believe that after her husband’s death, and before the accession of Tutankhamun, Nefertiti ruled a country under the name of Neferneferuaten.

Soon after that the old religion was restored, and its priests returned to power. Remembering almost two decades of persecution and humiliation, they laid a curse on the late pharaoh’s body, spirit, his very name, his capital city, and everything associated with him, closely or remotely. They tried to erase his very memory purging his name from all the records they could find. Akhetaten was abandoned and after several years was swept with sands, with only a few ruined royal buildings scattered around the desert reminding the world of its former glory.

Was Nefertiti also cursed and gone? Was she spared? How did she die? We don’t know for sure.

When you visit the Neues Museum, you will discover a strange thing: when we look at her bust long enough we may notice a slight sarcastic smile on her face, as if she, Nefertiti, the Great Royal Wife, makes fun of all of us. However maybe it’s just an optical illusion.

When writing about Caroline Herschel, one always experiences some mixed feelings. The story of her life is both sad and uplifting. Afflicted with a terrible disease at the tender age of ten that affected her physically for the rest of her life and forever dashed her dreams of having her own family, and a renowned astronomer who achieved full recognition and received the highest scientific honors that many scholars don’t even dream of—it’s all the same person.
Caroline Lucretia Herschel was born in Hanover, Germany on 16 March 1750. She was the eighth child of Isaac Herschel, a self-taught oboist and a bandmaster in the Hanoverian Foot Guards, and his wife Anna Ilse Moritzen.
At the age of ten, Caroline stopped growing (her height was four feet three inches) and became blind in her left eye as a result of typhus.
Her mother assumed she would be a house servant and never get married, so she was forbidden from studying French and advanced needlework. Nevertheless, when her mother was not around, Caroline’s father tutored her individually or included her in her brothers’ lessons.
After her father died, in August 1772, Caroline left Hanover and moved to Bath, a city in southwest England, joining her brothers, William and Alexander, who had already made it their permanent residence.
William had two passions that he pursued fervently from a young age: music and astronomy. He masterfully played various instruments and even composed numerous musical works, including 24 symphonies, eventually becoming a Director of Public Concerts in the city of Bath. Caroline assisted her brother as a soprano soloist during his public performances.
In the struggle between his two passions, his affection for astronomy took the upper hand and soon William began spending almost all of his time building telescopes, perfecting this craft to the point of inventing his own refined model, which was considered the best of its time. William also engaged in observational work, using his improved tools to gaze at the stars. Despite her desire to become a professional singer, as a faithful sister, Caroline again assisted her brother. This time in his scientific endeavors.
Aside from helping her brother, Caroline conducted independent astronomical observations. In the period between 1786 and 1797, she discovered eight comets and 14 nebulae.
After the death of her brother William in 1822, Caroline returned to Hanover, continuing her astronomical studies. In Hanover she completed a catalogue of nebulae and stellar clusters (more than 2500 objects).
Caroline Herschel was the first woman to be awarded a Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society (1828), and to be named an Honorary Member of the Royal Astronomical Society (1835). She was also named an honorary member of the Royal Irish Academy in 1838. When Caroline was 96 years old, the King of Prussia presented her with a Gold Medal for Science (1846).
Throughout the twilight of her life, Caroline remained physically active and healthy, and regularly socialized with other scientists.
Caroline Herschel died peacefully in Hanover on 9 January 1848. She is buried next to her parents and with a lock of William’s hair. To the very end she remained a devout fan and disciple of her brother.