Naqi’a

In some sources, Naqi’a is recorded as the wife of King Sennacharib of Assyria and mother of his son, Esarhaddon, while in others she is said to be Esarhaddon’s wife and mother of his son, Ashurbanipal. Despite the discrepancy, we do know that Naqi’a was influential in the politics of the Assyrian throne, which Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal held as kings (reigned 680–669 and 668–627 B.C.E., respectively). During each of their reigns, she served in an advisory role to under the title of queen mother.

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Pulcheria

Aelia Pulcheria ruled as regent of the Eastern Roman Empire during the minority of her brother Theodosius II and then empress in her own right from July 450 to her death in 453. In 414, the 15-year old Pulcheria became the chief guardian of her younger brother Theodosius II and was also proclaimed “augusta” (empress). Pulcheria had significant, though changing, influence and political power during her brother’s reign. When Theodosius II died on 26 July 450, she regained the throne. Pulcheria married Marcian on 25 November 450, while maintaining her vow of virginity. She died three years later, in July 453.
Pulcheria greatly influenced the Christian Church and its theological development by guiding two of the most important ecumenical councils in ecclesiastical history, Ephesus and Chalcedon, in which the Church ruled on christological issues. The Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church later recognized her as a saint.

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Shirley Clarke Franklin

In 2001, Shirley Clarke Franklin became Atlanta, Georgia’s first African American female mayor, as well as the first African-American woman to be a mayor of a major southern US city. It was the first time she had run for public office; with her 2005 re-election, she served as mayor until 2010. Under previous mayors, she had served the city as Commissioner of Cultural Affairs and Chief Administrative Officer and City Manager. In 2205, Franklin recieved the Profile in Courage Award in 2005 from the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation, which praised her management of the city during a critical period of enormous deficit and loss of public confidence in government following the corrupt administration of her predecessor, Mayor Bill Campbell.

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Martha Érika Alonso

A Mexican politician and member of the National Action Party (PAN), Martha Érika Alonso served as the first female governor of Puebla from 14 December 2018 until her death ten days later in a helicopter crash. As the wife of her predecessor, Rafael Moreno Valle Rosas, she had served as the state’s first lady from Februray 2011 to February 2017.

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Teresa Leger Fernandez

Teresa Leger Fernandez is an American attorney and politician who was elected in 2020 Representative for New Mexico’s 3rd congressional district in the United States House of Representatives. She was the first Latina to represent New Mexico’s third congressional district

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