Angélique de Coudray

In 1759, French king Louis XV launched a project to reduce infant mortality in the country and commissioned Parisian midwife Angélique du Coudray to train peasant women as midwifes. From 1760 to 1783, she trained approximately 10,000 women across France, visiting poor women in rural areas and sharing her extensive knowledge with them. Presumably the women she taught also passed those skills on to outhers in following years. Du Coudray also invented the first lifesize obstetrical mannequin, so the women could practice mock births, and published a popular midwifery textbook, Abrégé de l’art des accouchements (The Art of Obstetrics, 1759). Due to the lack of accurate data collection, it is impossible to quote statistics about infant mortality rates (which were frequently underreported in the 1700s and earlier), but it seems inarguable that du Coudray must have directly and indirectly saved countless lives, of both mothers and children.

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Dr Dian Fossey

Dr Dian Fossey was one of the world’s leading experts on primatology (the study of primates) and spent 18 years in African mountain forests studying gorillas. Fossey conducted the majority of her zoological research in the Congo jungle and Rwandan forests. In addition to anti-poaching activism, she pioneered scientific discoveries about gorilla societal structure. Her best-selling book, Gorillas In The Mist, was later adapted into a film. Her 1985 murder remains unsolved. She also reportedly tortured her enemies, kidnapped their children, and killed their livestock, along with lesser retaliatory acts. She was also known to be racist to the local Rwandans.

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Ada Armytage

Ada’s photographs and her sisters’ diaries, letters and journals make up the Armytage family archive, which preserves the significant moment in history.

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Sarah Al Amiri

Emirati Minister of State for Advanced Sciences, chair of the UAE Space Agency and the United Arab Emirates Council of Scientists, and Deputy Project Manager of the Emirates Mars Mission, Hope.

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Adah Thoms

Adah Belle Samuels Thoms was an African-American nurse who co-founded the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses and served as president from 1916 to 1923.

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Ann Katharine Mitchell

Ann Katharine Mitchell was a British cryptanalyst and psychologist who worked on decrypting messages encoded in the Germans’ Enigma cypher at Bletchley Park during World War II.

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