Young Women Who Made Their Mark Early In Life Quiz

Answer: Joan of Arc

Jeanne d'Arc (known as Joan of Arc in English) is perhaps the archetype of the young woman achiever. The Siege of Orleans, part of the One Hundred Years War, had dragged on for seven months in 1429 when French king, Charles VII, sent Joan into battle to turn things around. She was only 17 years old when she cut her hair, began wearing men's clothes, and rode off to battle. Within nine days the British abandoned the siege after Joan and her followers beat back the English who had to retreat. Joan went on to lead two more battles until she was captured by the English in 1830 and was burned at the stake after being found guilty of heresy and blasphemy.

However, King Charles VII overturned her guilty verdict in 1450. In 1909, Pope Pius X beatified her in Paris at Notre Dame Cathedral and, in 1920, Pope Benedict XV declared her a saint via beatification.

Answer: Malala Youafzai

Malala was only eleven years old when she began to advocate for girls' education in Pakistan. She wrote a blog called "Diary of a Pakistani Schoolgirl". In her diary, she chronicled her hope to keep attending school, and also her fears for the region she lived which was under constant warfare. Because of this, a Taliban gunman boarded her school bus in 2012 and shot her in the head.

She recovered. She went on to become a worldwide advocate for women's rights. In 2014 she became the youngest recipient of the Nobel peace prize aged 17.

Answer: Laura Dekker

Laura Dekker was born to Dutch parents in Whangerei, New Zealand in 1995. At 13 she announced he plans to circumnavigate the globe solo. The Dutch courts stepped in and prevented Laura from attempting this. This was overturned a year later and with the blessing and support of her parents, she left Gibraltar but did not start the circumnavigation until she had crossed the Atlantic.

She left St Maarten in the Caribbean on 20 January 2011 on a French-built 12-metre (40 ft) double-masted Jeanneau Gin Fizz ketch called Guppy (all her boats had been called Guppy).

She crossed the equator twice (a requirement) and returned to Simpson Bay on Sint Maarten on 21 January 2012 aged 16 years 123 days.

Answer: Nadia Comaneci

Nadia Comaneci will always be remembered for her performance on the uneven bars at the 1976 Montreal Olympics, where she received a perfect 10 score. This score was considered an impossibility, so much so that the scoreboard could not be programmed to record such a score so her perfect score was displayed as "1.00". However, she did not earn one perfect score at those games, she earned an additional six perfects scores on her way to winning three gold medals in the individual all-around, the balance beam and uneven bars. She also won an individual bronze for the floor exercise and won a silver as a member of the team all-around.

She won a further two gold medals at the 1980 Moscow Olympics. In her career, she also won four World Artistic Gymnastics Championship medals. Her influence on attracting girls to the sport worldwide was enormous. In 1989, she defected from Romania to the USA where she married an American gymnast Bart Connor.

Answer: Saira Blair

In November, 2014 Saira Blair from Martinsburg WV was elected to the West Virginia House of Delegates as a representative from the Republican Party, representing the 59th district. At the time of her election, she was the youngest person elected to state or federal office in the United States.

To be elected she had to win the Republican primary which she did, beating the incumbent Larry Kump 55% to 45%. In that election she was only 17, a year too young to vote. In November 2014, now 18, she won the seat over Democratic opponent Lyne Diehl (62% to 31%). She ran again in 2016, winning the primary unopposed and the election itself by a similar margin to 2014.

Ms Blair described herself as very conservative and as such identified as fiscally conservative, "pro-marriage" and "pro-family". She received multiple death threats which she said were gender rather than politically motivated. She did not seek re-election in 2018 but worked in the philanthropy and community sectors. In 2021 she was appointed by the West Virginian state treasurer as a deputy treasurer.

Answer: Amariyanna "Mari" Copeny

Mari (born in 2007) became known as "Little Miss Flint" when she wrote to President Obama in 2015 to raise awareness of the lead-contaminated water supply in her hometown of Flint, Michigan. President Obama visited Flint and subsequently authorised $100m to fix the crisis. In his reply to her letter President Obama stated "letters from kids like you are what makes me so optimistic about the future".

Since then she has participated in other fundraising activities, raising over $US1 million for a series of events relating to clean water. In 2017 she earned a national audience with a rally in front of the White House in 2017 called "Stand Up to Trump". In this speech, she told how, during his 2016 campaign, Donald Trump promised the people of Flint that he would rectify the water crisis in Flint. She went on to say that "President Trump has not fulfilled his campaign promise" In the same speech she also spoke out about Mr Trump's immigration policies. When she was 15, at the 2022 Billboard Music Awards, she was awarded the third Change Maker Award in honour of her advocacy for the environment.

Answer: Taylor Swift

Taylor Swift is a musical phenomenon. She released her self-titled first album in 2006 which made her the first female country singer to write a U.S. platinum-certified album (she went on to be the first act to have five albums open at the same time with over one million copies sold in the US). Those albums have crossed genres and include, country, country pop, rock, synth-pop and indie folk.

She has won at least 12 Grammys and 40 American Music Awards. She featured in "Rolling Stones" 100 Greatest Songwriters of all time and has been awarded Artist of the Decade and Woman of the Decade.

She has a positive image in the media and has been a role model for young women. She is an advocate for women's empowerment.

Answer: Yusra Mardini

Yusra Mardini had a dream to swim in the Olympics for Syria but when her country was torn apart by civil war, she and her sister Sarah decided to flee Syria for Germany. They reached Turkey via Lebanon and then paid to be smuggled into Greece by boat. She and 18 others were given a rubber dinghy meant for six or seven people. After the motor stopped working, the two sisters and others who could swim jumped into the sea and pushed and pulled the boat for hours until they reached the Greek island of Lesbos. They then walked to Germany where they were assisted by the authorities and they settled in Berlin.

Yusra found a sympathetic swimming coach, Sven Spannenkrebs who helped her qualify for the 2016 Olympics. (Her sister went back to Greece to help other refugees). Yusra was one of ten athletes selected for the newly formed Refugee Olympic Team and she swam in two events at Rio. She also competed in the 2020 Olympics where she was the flag-bearer for IOC Refugee Olympic Team.

In 2017 she was appointed a UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador. These ambassadors (usually celebrities) are delegates of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) who use their talent to advocate for refugees. In a 2022 interview with "British Vogue" she said: "After the Olympics, I realised that it's not just my story anymore. I realised that my responsibility is to raise awareness and bring hope to millions of refugees around the world and speak for all of those who do not have a voice."

Answer: Mary Shelley

In 1797, philosophers Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin had a daughter Mary who received an exceptional education because of her parents' position in English society. She eloped with a student of her father's as a teenager and had a daughter but she passed away a few hours after birth. Mary went to Switzerland to recover.

She met a group of friends there including Lord Byron where the group took turns telling ghost tales. Lord Byron challenged each member to write such a story themselves. This inspired Mary to write the classic "Frankenstein" which was published two years later in 1818.

The book was still in print early in the 21st century. She wrote seven novels in total, two travelogues and many volumes of short stories. She died aged 53 from a brain tumour.

Answer: Mary Stuart

King James V of Scotland and his French wife Mary of Guise only had one child, a daughter called Mary. King James died when she was six days old effectively making her Queen of Scotland, though the country was ruled, initially by her mother and then by regents. She was therefore referred to as Mary, Queen of Scots. At age five she was sent to France. She was raised at the court of King Henry II and his queen, Catherine de Medicis, with help from French relations on her mother's side, the highly- respected Guises. Mary became a Frenchwoman rather than a Scot. When she was sixteen she was married to Francis, eldest son of Henry and Catherine, in April 1558. However, Francis died in December 1560 making her a widow at 18. She returned to Scotland but her French education made her poorly prepared to rule Scotland.

Two years earlier in 1558, Elizabeth Tudor inherited the throne of England. Mary was the granddaughter of Margaret, sister of King Henry VIII. This meant that Mary was next in line to the English throne. The English Roman Catholics considered Elizabeth illegitimate because they had invalidated Henry VIII's divorce from Catherine of Aragon and his marriage to Anne Boleyn. They saw Mary as the lawful queen of England. Mary's father-in-law, Henry II of France, therefore claimed the English throne on Mary's behalf. Mary was a Catholic and England's rulers were, of course, Protestant.

In 1565 she unwisely married her half-cousin, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, and in 1566 had a son James but Darnley was murdered in 1567. James Hepburn, 4th Earl of Bothwell, was generally charged with Darnley's death, but he was acquitted and a month later he married Mary. This caused an uprising and Mary was imprisoned in Lochleven Castle. On 24 July 1567, she was forced to abdicate in favour of her one-year-old son.

She fled to London seeking the protection of her first cousin (once removed), Elizabeth I. However Elizabeth was aware of both her Catholicism and her claim to the English throne and confined Mary to several castles in England far away from London. After eighteen years in captivity, Mary was charged and tried for plotting to assassinate Elizabeth in 1586. The charge was probably fabricated. She was beheaded at Fotheringhay Castle in 1587 aged 44.