I agree with Scott Berkiun: “A disturbing element of history is its unfairness to women. The majority of our most famous inventors and discoverers are men in large part because women were denied the education and opportunity required to make similar achievements. It’s hard to identify a singular cause but there’s evidence the shift to monotheism changed what had been a more balanced view of gender power, when there was still respect for male and female roles, into masculine centric cultures. Even by the time of the Western Enlightenment, women were still given few opportunities to study, work in pioneering fields or to receive acclaim for their work. This is a subject well beyond the scope of this post.”

Even the ancient Greeks, who were progressive on many fronts, had few female philosophers and scholars, although there were some. Among the better known is Hypatia, but few works from the time survived and it’s hard to know how much influence she had.

Marie Curie is one of the greatest innovators throughout history. She is first on a chronological list compiled by TakePart.

Turns out, the atom (which means “uncuttable”) can be split. This was one of the major discoveries made by Curie while she was studying “radioactive” elements. She received her first Nobel Prize for the discovery of radioactivity and her second for the discovery of polonium and radium. She was also the first person to win two Nobel Prizes.

To learn more about Marie Curie, please click here.

 

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Here is a direct link to the complete list.

TakePart is the digital news and lifestyle magazine from Participant Media, the company behind such acclaimed documentaries as CITIZENFOUR, An Inconvenient Truth and Food, Inc. and feature films including Lincoln and Spotlight.

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