Influential Women Throughout History Quiz

Cleopatra (full name: Cleopatra VII Thea Philopator) was born in Alexandria, Egypt, to Ptolemy XII, the last pharaoh of Egypt, and his wife, Queen Cleopatra V Tryphaena. When her father died in 51BC, Cleopatra's younger brother, Ptolemy, who was ten, became king, but he was too young to rule, so Cleopatra and Ptlomy XIII ruled jointly.

At this time, Pompey and Julius Caesar were fighting for control of the Roman Republic. Pompey was defeated by Caesar at the Battle of Pharsalus in Greece, 48 BC, so he fled to Egypt. However, Ptlomy ordered him killed, which angered Caesar as he was striving for peace. Caesar came to Egypt because the country had a huge grain-growing capacity, and Caesar wanted Egypt to feed his republic. Cleopatra charmed Caesar, and they fell in love despite a 31-year age difference. Caesar made Cleopatra Queen again, which angered Ptlomy. There was fighting, but Ptlomy drowned in the Nile trying to flee.

Cleopatra had a son, Caesarion, to Caesar, but Caesar was murdered in 44 BC, so Cleopatra fled back to Egypt. Caesar was replaced by three men (a triumvirate). One of the three, Mark Antony, went to see Cleopatra in Egypt, and the pair had three children. However, a power struggle between Antony and Octavian (one of the others in the triumvirate) broke out, and there was a war which Octavian won, becoming the ruler of the Roman Empire. He was now called Augustus or Caesar Augustus. He took control of Egypt from Cleopatra. Antony had already committed suicide. Cleopatra then committed suicide by letting a venomous snake, called an asp, bite her.

Boudica (born about 25 AD) was the queen of the Celtic Iceni people in Norfolk in the eastern part of Roman Britain. When her husband Prasutagus died in 60AD, the Romans took over his kingdom, inhumanely treated Boudica and her daughters, and took over their lands.

Boudica did not submit and led the Iceni and the neighbouring tribe, the Trinovantes, to war against the Romans. They destroyed the Roman towns of Camulodunum (Colchester), Verulamium (St Albans) and Londinium. The Iceni were defeated at the Battle of Watling Street. The fate of Boudica was unknown. One theory is that she took poison to avoid capture by the Romans. Her burial site is not known. Her death ended the rebellion, and Rome considered withdrawing from Britain before deciding to stay. However, by doing so, they took a more conciliatory approach to ruling over the Britons.

Joan of Arc (Jeanne d'Arc), who was also known as The Maid of Orléans, was born a peasant girl in Eastern France on January 12, 1412. At that time, France was under English rule as the Hundred Years' War was still ongoing. When she was 12, Joan said she had a vision from God, which told her to take back her homeland (France) from the English. When she was 16, she asked to lead an army, and despite initial opposition to this, the French King, Charles, relented. She led her army to win back the city of Orleans and then Rheims for France. At the coronation of King Charles in Rheims in 1429, Joan was a guest of honour.

Next year, the city of Compiegne was under siege, so Joan went into battle with an army again. However, she was captured by the enemy, the Burgundians, and sold her to the English.

The English wanted to prove she was a heretic and that she had used witchcraft to defeat them. There was no evidence for this, but as Joan dressed as a man, she was considered guilty and was sentenced to death. The French King did nothing to help her. Joan was burned alive at the stake in 1431 in Rouen.

While she was exonerated by Pope Callixtus III twenty-five years later, she was always considered a national heroine of France. She was not canonised as a saint until 1920.

Elizabeth I was born on 7 September 1533 in Greenwich. She was the second daughter of King Henry VIII. Anne Boleyn was her mother. She had an older half-sister, Mary, and a younger half-brother, Edward.

When she was 13, her father died. Her younger brother Edward, aged nine, became King. He and a regency council ruled for six years, advancing his father's directive that England must be protestant. He died at 15, probably of tuberculosis. He nominated Lady Jane Grey (granddaughter of Henry VIII's sister Mary) as his successor, as next in line was his eldest sister, Mary, who was a catholic. Lady Jane Grey ruled for nine days until Mary rallied supporters and was declared Queen. She beheaded Lady Jane Grey, ruled for five years, and reversed England's Protestantism to return England to Catholicism. She killed off opponents and had Elizabeth locked up in the Tower of London. She took a husband, a Spaniard, to try to produce an heir that would prevent her sister from becoming queen. However, she died childless, from either ovarian or uterine cancer, or possibly influenza.

Elizabeth became Queen of England and Ireland on 17 November 1558 and ruled for 44 years. Her reign included many achievements, especially in the arts, trade, religious reform and exploration. She made England a protestant nation once again and led her country against the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588. She never married but claimed she was married to England. She was the last Tudor monarch when she died in 1603. Her date of accession was proclaimed a national holiday for 200 years.

Catherine II was born Sophie of Anhalt-Zerbst on 21 April 1729 in Szczecin, Kingdom of Prussia (now Poland), and was Empress of Russia from 1762 to 1796. She was commonly called Catherine the Great.

She came to power by overthrowing her husband, the Emperor Peter III. She was greatly admired by the Russian public. She had expertise in international affairs and led the successful Russo-Turkish wars, which conquered new territories for Russia. During her reign, this time period was considered the peak of Russian enlightenment with a Renaissance in the arts, Russian culture and sciences. (And yet she ruled as an autocrat). During this period, many new cities, theatres and universities were built. Also during her reign, large-scale immigration was encouraged, and Russia became one of Europe's great powers.

Catherine the Great had a stroke on 16 November 1795 and died the next day.

Jane Austen (16 December 1775 - 18 July 1817) was a beloved English novelist who was one of the first authors to write a modern novel rather than romantic melodrama. Her greatest book, certainly her greatest-selling book, is "Pride and Prejudice" (1813).

Austen grew up in a well-to-do family with six older brothers and a sister, Cassandra. She was well educated and wrote poems and plays as a child. Her fame as an author grew as, while her novels were romantic fiction, they were about everyday people and everyday life. Her stories had elements of comedy, but they also highlighted social norms of the day, particularly how women depended on marriage for standing in society and economic security. Her themes often included moral dilemmas.

She published six novels, but only four while she was alive: "Sense and Sensibility" (1811), "Pride and Prejudice" (1813), "Mansfield Park" (1814) and "Emma" (1815). Two other novels, "Northanger Abbey" and "Persuasion", were printed after her death in 1817. She was only 41 when she died, possibly from Addison's Disease.

Florence Nightingale (1820-1910) was an English nurse born into a wealthy family who shunned an aristocratic lifestyle to devote herself to the profession of nursing. She became particularly famous by introducing modern techniques of nursing, particularly when caring for wounded soldiers in the Crimean War (1853-56). Not quite as well known was her ability as a writer to record her nursing principles and medical information and to spread medical knowledge through writing books in simple English so those with poor reading skills could understand the basis of medicine.

She was known as the Lady with the Lamp as she carried a lamp with her as she conducted her rounds of wounded soldiers through the night. She lived until she was 90 and died in London, near where her statue stands in Waterloo Place.

Mother Teresa was a Roman Catholic nun who was born in what is now Macedonia on 26 August 1910. For over forty years, she looked after and cared for people in Calcutta, India, who were orphaned, elderly, sick or dying.

For her humanitarian work, she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979. After she died in Calcutta in the same year, she was beatified by Pope John Paul II. In 2016, she was named a Saint and was given the title Blessed Teresa of Calcutta.

Diana Frances Spencer was a member of the British royal family. She married Charles, the eldest child of Queen Elizabeth II, in 1981 and became the Princess of Wales. She had two children, Prince William and Prince Harry. Despite separating in 1992 and divorcing Prince Charles in 1996, she continued her commitment and devotion to charity work, particularly in the fields of AIDS acceptance and the removal of landmines. Her preference was to help the young and the elderly.

Princess Diana was tragically killed in a car accident in Paris on August 31, 1997.

Malala Yousafzai was born on 12 July 1997 in Pakistan. When she was 11, she made speeches through the Urdu BBC about girls' and women's rights. In 2015, aged 15, this caused her to be almost assassinated by those opposing her views.

When she was 16, at the United Nations headquarters in New York City, she gave a speech on the right to education for all, human rights, and peace, stressing non-violent resistance against terrorism. In October 2014, she became the youngest person to win the Nobel Peace Prize, at 17. She was elected one of the United Nations Messengers of Peace in 2017.

She went to Oxford University to study philosophy, economics and politics. After she completed her degree, she continued as an activist for education and women's rights in the UK. She married Asser Malik, an employee with the Pakistan Cricket Board, in Birmingham, UK, in 2021.