Women's History on Pitara Kids Network

Emmeline Pankhurst: Leading the battle for Women's right to vote

Fri, 22 May 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Emmeline Pankhurst (1858 - 1928):

It was a little over 100 years ago that women were first allowed to vote in the United Kingdom of Britain. Till 1918, only men were allowed to vote in the British elections to Parliament. The battle for universal suffrage, or men and women voting as equals, was led by the British political activist Emmeline Pankhurst. She fought a long and hard battle during which she was arrested more than seven times, and had to leave her three daughters with cousins so that she could continue the fight.

Florence Nightingale: The Lady With A Lamp

Mon, 15 Jun 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Florence Nightingale (1820 - 1910)

Today, it is common knowledge that female nurses play an important role in treating patients. However, this was not always the case. Florence Nightingale helped build the reputation of nurses as we know it today. She was a social worker, statistician and founder of modern nursing.

Nightingale used to train nurses during the Crimean war and would often treat soldiers under the cover of darkness. This led to English society giving her the title, The Lady With A Lamp. The highest award a nurse can achieve was named in her honor and her birthday is celebrated as International Nurses Day.

Maria Curie: The only scientist to win a Nobel prize twice

Sat, 16 May 2020 18:28:31 +0000

Maria Skłodowska Curie (1867 - 1934):

Marie Curie (born Maria Skłodowska Curie) was the first woman to win a Nobel prize and the only scientist to win a Nobel prize twice. She was also the first scientist to win a Nobel Prize in two different fields of science. She found a treatment for cancer, coined the word “radioactive”, and discovered the elements Radium and Polonium.

Maria Skłodowska Curie was born in Warsaw, Poland on the 7th of November, 1867.
Her parents lost all of their property during the Polish freedom struggle. Curie struggled to put herself through college by teaching and getting a fellowship. She studied physics, chemistry, and mathematics at the University of Paris.

Amelia Earhart

Tue, 29 Jan 2002 02:45:20 +0000

Amelia Earhart was one of the world’s most celebrated aviators. She broke records and charted new skies in the course of her short life. She disappeared while she was on a flight around the world.

Earhart was born on July 24, 1897, in Atchison, Kansas. She was the elder of Edwin Stanton and Amy Otis Earhart’s two daughters. Childhood was not happy for the two bright sisters. Their father was an alcoholic and lost jobs often. The family travelled a great deal.

Ada Lovelace, The Mother of Computing

Thu, 28 May 2020 18:28:31 +0000

Ada Lovelace (1815-1852):

When you use your device, remember that Ada Lovelace was the first person to write a computer program. She is widely regarded as the first person to recognize the full potential of computers. She wrote the first algorithm ever.

Ada Lovelace was born on the 10th of December, 1815 to the famous poet Lord Byron and his wife Lady Byron. Her parents named her Augusta Ada Byron. Her parents separated soon after she was born. Ada did not have a relationship with her father at all. Her mother left her in the care of Ada’s maternal grandmother but made sure Ada was privately schooled in mathematics and science by two scholars. Ada was often ill. However, by the age of 12, she had discovered her passion for mathematics and technology. Her project at the time was the miracle of flight. She built wings with different materials and did immense research. Eventually, she used her findings to write a book called Flyology.

J.K. Rowling: Casts a reading spell on children in the era of digital media

Tue, 26 May 2020 01:30:00 +0000

Joanne Kathleen Rowling (1965 - ):

J.K. Rowling is the author of the most widely sold book series in all of history. Her fantasy novels are about the story of a boy, Harry Potter. He is an English orphan who is given admission to a school of magic, exclusively for wizards and witches. Rowling’s Harry Potter series takes us into the world of magic as Harry and his friends fight the source of evil in their world, Lord Voldemort.

Marie Stopes: A Guiding Light For The Women of England

Mon, 22 Jun 2020 10:28:31 +0000

Marie Stopes (1880 – 1958):

Nearly 100 years ago, one woman took it upon herself to help women take control of their own bodies. To decide whether they wanted children, and when they wanted children. At a time when it was looked down upon, Marie Stopes helped a generation of English women safely discuss sex, pregnancy, and birth control.

Birth control refers to methods of preventing a pregnancy. Abortion is a medical procedure that ends a pregnancy. It is estimated that one in four pregnancies a year, end in abortion. Although birth control is available today, access to safe abortion is still not available for the millions of women who need it.

Rosa Parks: The First Lady of Civil Rights

Sat, 27 Jun 2020 00:00:00 +0530

Rosa Parks (1913-2005):

It might seem alien to you today, but in 1950’s America, discrimination was protected and enforced by the state. One of the key ways this was done was by segregation. African Americans were told where they could eat, where they could go to school, where they could live, and where they could be buried. The effort and sacrifice of one young woman to fight against this injustice made her an international icon and earned her the title, “the first lady of civil rights”.

Indira Gandhi

Mon, 11 Sep 2000 19:11:16 +0000

Indira Gandhi, née Indira Priyadarshini Nehru (1917-1984), was born on November 19, 1917, in Allahabad, the only child of Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of India. A graduate of Visva-Bharati University, Bengal, she also studied at the University of Oxford, England. In 1938 she joined the National Congress party and became active in India’s independence movement. In 1942 she married Feroze Gandhi, a Parsi lawyer also active in the party. Shortly after, both were arrested by the British on charges of subversion and spent 13 months in prison. When India won its independence in 1947 and Nehru took office as prime minister, Gandhi became his official hostess. (Her mother had died in 1936.) She also served as his confidante on national problems and accompanied him on foreign trips.

Eleanor Roosevelt

Wed, 25 Oct 2000 03:57:13 +0000

Anna Eleanor Roosevelt was a powerful voice on behalf of a wide range of social causes including youth employment and civil rights for blacks and women. The wife of a popular U.S. president, Eleanor Roosevelt was born in New York City on October 11, 1884 was a tireless worker for social causes. A niece of President Theodore Roosevelt, she was raised by her maternal grandmother after the premature death of her parents. In 1905, she married her cousin Franklin Delano Roosevelt; they had six children, one of whom died in infancy. Although extremely shy, she became active in politics after her husband was stricken with polio in 1921.

Margaret Hilda Thatcher

Sat, 12 Aug 2000 12:22:40 +0000

Thatcher was born Margaret Hilda Roberts in Grantham. She married Denis Thatcher in 1951. Thatcher was elected to the House of Commons in 1959. After the Conservative defeat in 1974 she won leadership of the party the following year. In 1979 she led the Conservatives to victory, vowing to reverse Britain’s economic decline and to reduce the role of government. In 1982 Argentine forces occupied the Falkland Islands, which were claimed by both Argentina and the United Kingdom. The British military defeated the Argentine military. She led the Conservatives to further victories in the 1983 and 1987 parliamentary elections, becoming the first British prime minister in the 20th century to serve three consecutive terms.

Margaret Sanger

Thu, 28 Jan 1999 07:33:12 +0000

Born into an Irish working class family on Sept 14, 1879 in Corning, New York, Margaret Sanger is known for her crusade to legalise birth control which later spurred the movement for women’s liberalisation. As a young girl Margaret witnessed her mother’s slow death worn out after 18 pregnancies and 11 live births. Later while working as a nurse and midwife in the poorest neighbourhoods of New York city before World War I she saw women deprived of their health, sexuality and ability to care for children already born. She was appalled at the death from self-induced abortions.