Women in History Trivia

1. This British lady campaigned for votes for women and started the Suffragette movement. What was her surname?

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Answer: Pankhurst

Emmeline Pankhurst was the leader of the campaign to get votes for women in Britain. This started in the late 1800s and went on until the start of World War I in 1914. Over time she was joined by her three daughters, the best known of whom is Christabel. Many of the women in the campaign were jailed for their beliefs and Emily Davison died when, as a protest, she threw herself under a racehorse owned by the King. Women over 30 were given the right to vote in 1918, and in 1928 all women over 21 were given the vote. This was the same as men. Nightingale is Florence Nightingale, the famous nurse. Curie is Marie Curie, a famous scientist.

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Answer: Nurse

Edith Cavell was a British nurse working in Belgium during World War I. She treated wounded soldiers from all sides without making any distinctions between them. She also assisted around 200 Allied soldiers to escape from the Germans, and for that she was arrested, found guilty of treason, and executed by firing squad. She was buried in Belgium, but after the war her body was brought back to England. A memorial service was held for her in Westminster Abbey and she was reburied in Norwich, close to her childhood home.

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Answer: Lady Godiva

Lady Godiva was the wife of Leofric, who was a nobleman in Mercia, a region of England in the 11th century. He imposed harsh taxes on the people, but agreed not to charge them if she would ride through the streets naked. She agreed, and the legend says she had her long hair to cover her. All the people stayed indoors and closed their windows and doors so they did not see her, except for one, a tailor. The legend says he was struck blind for looking at her. His name was Tom and this is where "Peeping Tom" comes from. Whilst Lady Godiva did exist the legend did not surface until the 13th century, some 200 years after her death, and is probably not true. Boudica was a warrior queen who fought against the Roman invaders of Britain. Anne Hathaway was the wife of William Shakespeare. Lady Jane Grey was Queen of England for nine days in 1553.

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Answer: Prison Reform

Elizabeth Fry was a devout Christian, and in her youth tried to help the poor and sick in her neighbourhood. At the suggestion of a friend she visited women prisoners in Newgate Prison in London and was appalled by the conditions there. This was in the early 1800s. The prison was overcrowded with little or no sanitation or cooking facilities. She founded a school for the children of prisoners, brought in food and clothes for them, and founded the 'British Ladies Society for Promoting the Reformation of Female Prisoners'. In 1818 she gave evidence to a House of Commons committee about prison conditions in England, making her the first woman to ever present evidence in Parliament.

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Answer: Dian Fossey

Dian Fossey spent eighteen years studying and living among the mountain gorillas in Rwanda. The gorillas became so accustomed to her presence that she was able to study them far more closely than had ever been done before. Her work gave an understanding of how a family of gorillas interact with each other that had not previously existed. At the time she was there, poaching of gorillas was still a problem, and she set up anti poaching patrols. She was murdered in 1985. It is believed that she was killed by poachers, but no-one has ever been convicted for the killing. Her legacy is that the mountain gorillas in Rwanda are now in a protected national park. Her story was filmed in "Gorillas In The Mist" (1988) starring Sigourney Weaver. Diane Abbot is a British Member of Parliament Deanna Durbin was a 1920s film star

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Answer: Arkansas

Hattie Caraway's husband was Senator for Arkansas. When he died in December 1931 she was temporarily appointed to take his place. This was not uncommon practice as it ensured a continuation of representation for the state while an election for a permanent replacement was organised. She astonished everyone by announcing she would run for Senator in the January 1932 election, and her opponents were even more astonished when she won. She served in the Senate until 1945. She was not the first women in the Senate. That distinction belongs to Rebecca Fulton who was appointed to temporarily fill the vacancy left by the death of Tom Watson. She was sworn in on November 21st 1922 and served only one day before her place was taken by the newly elected Senator for Georgia, Walter George.

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Answer: Russian

Russian cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova was the first woman to go into space. She did so in 1963. She was in orbit for three days and during that time carried out various tests on herself to see if the effects of space flight on the female body were different to the effects on men. She was given many awards and decorations, and when she married fellow cosmonaut Andrian Nikolayev, the then head of the Soviet Union, Khrushchev, was at the wedding, along with other top officials. She is still regarded as a Russian heroine.

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Answer: Marie Curie

Marie Curie was a Polish scientist who did most of her work in France. She discovered radium and polonium and developed a way of using radioactive isotopes. She won the Nobel prize for Physics in 1903 and the Nobel prize for Chemistry in 1911. Very few people win more than one Nobel prize and it is very rare to win a second in a different discipline. Much of her work was the foundation for modern radiation therapy in cancer treatment. Marie Curie cancer care, which provides specialist nurses and hospices, is named after her.

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Answer: Calamity Jane

Calamity Jane was born in 1852 as Martha Jane Canary. The death of her father forced her into becoming the breadwinner for the family, and she took various jobs including ox team driver, before becoming a scout for the Army. Quite how she got the nickname "Calamity" is uncertain as her own account of it being given to her by an Army Captain was later refuted. She did however become a well known figure and frontierswoman. Her friendship with Wild Bill Hickock began in around 1867 and lasted until his death. She later claimed that they had been married and that he was the father of her child, but many people said that this claim was false. She was portrayed in film by Doris Day in "Calamity Jane" (1953) with Howard Keel playing Wild Bill Hickock. The incorrect answers are all female outlaws from the Wild West era.

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