Throughout history, people have been known to change their identities for various reasons. The following women decided to disguise themselves as men to get ahead either in battle or in their careers.

They went on to achieve great things, whether that meant temporarily cross-dressing, adopting an alias, or impersonating a man for a long period of time until they reached their goals. This was often at great risk, too. Turns out it’s not such a man’s world after all.

10 Rena ‘Rusty’ Kanokogi

In 1959, Rusty Kanokogi entered the YMCA Judo Championship in Utica, New York. She cut her hair short, taped down her chest, and went on to win her fight. However, when she stepped up to collect her medal, the tournament organizer asked if she was a woman. When she replied “yes,” she was stripped her of the winning medal. Kanokogi said of the experience, “It instilled a feeling in me that no woman should have to go through this again.”^[1]

Her goal was for women’s judo to be considered an Olympic sport. In 1984, her dream began to come true at the Los Angeles Games when women’s judo became an exhibition sport. In 1988, when the Summer Olympics were held in Seoul, South Korea, it attained medal status.

Considered the mother of women’s judo, Kanokogi died from complications of cancer at age 74 in 2009. One year earlier, the Japanese government had awarded her the Order of the Rising Sun, Japan’s highest honor for a foreigner.

9 The Bronte Sisters

Sisters Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Bronte published their collection of poetry Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell under male pseudonyms in 1846. The following year, the novel Wuthering Heights was published under Emily’s pen name, Ellis Bell. In 1847, Jane Eyre was also published under Charlotte’s pen name, Currer Bell, and Agnes Grey was published under Anne’s pen name, Acton Bell.

In the preface for the 1910 edition of Wuthering Heights (published posthumously following Emily’s death in 1848), Charlotte explained why the sisters decided to adopt male names for their published works. She said:

Averse to personal publicity, we veiled our own names under those of Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell; the ambiguous choice being dictated by a sort of conscientious scruple at assuming Christian names positively masculine, while we did not like to declare ourselves women, because—without at that time suspecting that our mode of writing and thinking was not what is called “feminine”—we had a vague impression that authoresses are liable to be looked on with prejudice.^[2]

After receiving generous critical reviews for their work, the Bronte sisters began publishing under their own names. They remain some of the most important authors in the history of literature.

8 Joan Of Arc

Joan of Arc (aka “The Maid of Orleans”) was considered a heroine during her 19 years of life from 1412 to 1431. Born into a peasant family in northeast France, she believed that God had given her a mission to save France from its enemies and that Charles VII should be the rightful king. At age 16, she disguised herself as a man and journeyed across Chinon with her small band of followers.

She managed to convince Charles VII that she was a messenger from God and would see him installed as the ruler of France. Against the advice of his counsel, Charles VII granted Joan an army which she led to Orleans.

In 1430, as she attempted to defend Compiegne from an assault, Joan was thrown from her horse and held captive by the Burgundians. She was held on 70 charges, including dressing like a man and witchcraft. Following a signed confession, she was burned at the stake the very next year.^[3]

7 Anna Maria Lane

In 1776, Anna Maria Lane enlisted in the Continental Army. Typically, women joined as cooks, nurses, or laundry assistants. They did not enlist as soldiers. However, Lane desired to fight alongside her husband, John, so she disguised herself as a man. That way, she could serve in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Georgia.

Her real identity would easily have gone undetected as 18th-century soldiers did not bathe often and were known to sleep in their uniforms. Historian Joyce Henry confirmed:

As far as enlistment, there are no physicals when one enters the army in the 18th century. One must have front teeth and an operating thumb and forefinger so one may be able to reach in, grab a cartridge, tear off the paper, and be able to successfully load your musket.^[4]

During the Battle of Germantown near Philadelphia in 1777, Lane was wounded but she survived. It’s unknown when she was detected as a woman, most likely when she was injured. However, she successfully managed to stay by her husband’s side throughout the war.

Her bravery was rewarded with $100 a year for life in recognition of her service. She died in her mid-fifties on June 13, 1810.

6 Deborah Sampson

Deborah Sampson became the only woman to earn a full military pension for fighting during the American Revolutionary War. Formerly a teacher, she disguised herself as a man named Robert Shurtleff and joined the Patriot forces in 1782.^[5]

During her service, she led about 30 infantrymen on an expedition, successfully captured 15 men, dug trenches, and faced cannon fire. For almost two years, her real identity remained undetected until she became ill and was taken to the hospital unconscious.

In 1783, she received an honorable discharge and toured as a lecturer. She retold her experience while often dressed in her full military regalia. After her death in 1827 at 66 years old, her husband petitioned Congress for spousal support that would have been awarded to a female widow without question.

Congress agreed to give him spousal pay because there was “no other similar example of female heroism, fidelity and courage” like Sampson. However, her husband died before receiving any of the money.

5 Joanna Zubr

Polish soldier Joanna Zubr hid her identity from the soldiers who fought beside her in the Napoleonic Wars. In 1808, Zubr joined the army with her husband, Michal Zubr. She was eventually promoted to sergeant.

Their unit was later renamed the Greater Polish Division and took part in Napoleon’s invasion of Russia. During their retreat, she was separated from the division. But Zubr managed to escape Russian territory on her own and return to Poland safely.

Reunited with her husband, they were unable to return to Austrian-occupied and Russian-held parts of Poland. Instead, they settled in Wielun where she lived the rest of her days.

She became the first woman to receive the Virtuti Militari medal, the highest Polish military honor. This made her the first woman in history to receive an award for bravery in battle. In 1852, she died during a cholera epidemic at about 80 years old.^[6]

4 Maria Quiteria De Jesus

In 1822, Maria Quiteria ran away to join the troops in the Brazilian Army. She cut her hair, dressed in masculine clothes, and was able to avoid detection until her father—who had refused her request to join the army – discovered the truth. Despite her father’s knowledge, she did not abandon the army and her presence was welcomed by Major Silva y Castro due to her skill in the battle.^[7]

From October 1822 until June 1823, Maria Quiteria ambushed her enemies in the province of Bahia by luring them to a nearby camp where she would turn on them with her hidden bayonet. In August 1823, she was granted the rank of lieutenant by Emperor Pedro I—an unheard-of accolade for a woman.

In 1953, 100 years after her death, the Brazilian government hung a portrait of Maria Quiteria on the wall at their military headquarters as a national honor.

3 James Barry

Military surgeon James Barry served as an Inspector General in the British Army. He was in charge of the military hospitals and vastly improved conditions for patients during his career. Barry was also the first surgeon in South Africa to perform a Cesarean section in which both the mother and child survived.

Born Margaret Ann Bulkley, Barry’s real identity was only discovered after his death in 1865. As a maid prepared his body for the funeral, the sensational discovery was revealed. The British Army was so shocked that they blocked access to all Barry’s papers until the case was reopened by historian Isobel Rae in the 1950s.

One historical figure who was not a fan of Barry was Florence Nightingale, the founder of modern nursing. She wrote of her experience meeting the surgeon:

He kept me standing in the midst of quite a crowd of soldiers . . . every one of whom behaved like a gentleman while he behaved like a brute. After he was dead, I was told that [Barry] was a woman . . . I should say that [Barry] was the most hardened creature I ever met.^[8]

2 J.K. Rowling

Harry Potter author Joanne Rowling, known famously around the world as J.K. Rowling, revealed that she had decided while still unpublished to drop her first name from her books on wizardry and witchcraft to better appeal to a young male audience. Harry Potter went on to become the best-selling book series in history. The titles have been translated into over 60 languages.

In 2013, Rowling decided to switch to a male pen name again for her crime fiction novel The Cuckoo’s Calling. She wanted to “take my writing persona as far away as possible from me.” Rowling published the book under the name, Robert Galbraith, explaining, “I successfully channeled my inner bloke!”

Initially, editor David Shelley read it without knowing that Rowling was the author. Shelley later said, “I never would have thought a woman wrote that.” Galbraith’s identity did not stay secret for long because a friend of one of her lawyers leaked the news. Subsequently, the book became another literary hit for Rowling.^[9]

1 Kathrine Switzer

Runner Kathrine Switzer made history as the first woman to run the Boston Marathon in 1967. At that time, females were banned from competing. She had applied to compete in the race as a man. After it was discovered that a woman was running the 42-kilometer (26 mi) race, officials grabbed at her to try to stop her.

Switzer recalls:

Before I could react, he grabbed my shoulder and flung me back, screaming, “Get the hell out of my race, and give me those numbers!” Then he swiped down my front, trying to rip off my bib number, just as I leaped backward from him. I was so surprised and frightened that I slightly wet my pants and turned to run.

She added, “I knew if I quit, nobody would ever believe that women had the capability to run 26-plus miles. If I quit, everybody would say it was a publicity stunt. If I quit, it would set women’s sports back. My fear and humiliation turned to anger.”

In 1972, women were officially allowed to enter the marathon.^[10]

Cheish Merryweather is a true crime fan and an oddities fanatic. She can either be found at house parties telling everyone Charles Manson was only 157.48 centimeters (5’2″) or at home reading true crime magazines. Follow her on Twitter: @thecheish.

The contributions of women to our society cannot be overstated, even if those individuals have not received the credit they were due in most historical accounts. Before our modern era, the common perception of women had more to do with their roles as mothers and homemakers rather than as scientists.

But that is an incorrect and unfair characterization. Although female scientists were often denied recognition for their accomplishments, they were responsible for many groundbreaking discoveries and advancements in science. They still are today.

10 DNA

Yes, that’s right. The structure of DNA was discovered by a woman.

Three men won the 1962 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for bringing us what we now know as the double helix, the molecular shape of DNA. But the discovery was actually made by a woman named Rosalind Franklin who worked in conjunction with the men.

She was overshadowed by her peers when they accepted the award. However, she made incredible contributions to this discovery even though she was left out of the spotlight.

She managed to take a photo of DNA up close. It resembled an “X” on the film once it was developed. The photo was later called “Photograph 51,” and a play about Franklin was produced with that same title.

This catapulted our understanding of ourselves and the innermost workings of the body, which has helped physics, biology, and chemistry progress exponentially since then.^[1]

9 Earth’s Inner Core

Earth is composed of several layers. Although there are different ways to categorize these layers, we’re going to divide them into the crust, the mantle, the outer core, and the inner core, which was discovered by Danish seismologist Inge Lehmann in 1936.^[2]

The outer core is a molten one, while the inner core of the Earth is completely solid. The discovery of the inner core has helped us to determine the age of the Earth as well as plenty of other things.

By measuring the cooling rate of the Earth’s inner core, we’ve discovered that the inner core is likely to have begun solidifying about 0.5–2 billion years ago. Nonetheless, the growth of Earth’s inner core is believed to play a vital role in generating Earth’s magnetic fields.

8 The Milky Way Structure

Physics Professor Heidi Jo Newberg at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute is well-known for her contributions to our knowledge of the structure of the Milky Way galaxy. The Milky Way is a barred spiral galaxy that contains our solar system. It spans at least an impressive 100,000 light-years.

Newberg and her team found that the Milky Way cannibalizes stars from galaxies that are smaller. Also, they determined that the Milky Way is bigger than previously believed and has more ripples.

In 2002, Newberg’s research discovered that the disk of the Milky Way was corrugated. This led to a revised estimate of the width of the galaxy from 100,000 light-years to approximately 150,000 light-years. However, scientists are still debating this measurement.^[3]

7 Nuclear Fission

As happened all too often back in the day, a woman named Lise Meitner, one of the duo who discovered nuclear fission, was overlooked in 1945 when the Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to her partner, Otto Hahn. He accepted it by himself for work the two had done together.

This wasn’t the first time in her life that this happened. She’d discovered radiationless transition in 1923. However, her discovery was overlooked and credited to Pierre Victor Auger, a man who found the same thing two years later. In fact, the phenomenon is named the “Auger effect” after him.^[4]

Meitner came up with the term “fission” as early as 1939 and explained the process in a paper she’d published with the aid of her nephew, Otto Frisch. Nuclear fission was a process that would later become instrumental in the creation of the atomic bomb.

6 Kinetic Energy

Gabrielle-Emilie Le Tonnelier de Breteuil, marquise du Chatelet, was an 18th-century philosopher, mathematician, and physicist. She gave us the first-known description of kinetic energy as well as the first translation into French of Sir Isaac Newton’s famous work Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. It remains the standard translation to this day.

Kinetic energy is the energy possessed by a particle or object because of its motion. Previously, it had been believed by Newton, Voltaire, and others that kinetic energy was proportional to a moving object’s velocity. Du Chatelet corrected their formula. For one thing, she added that kinetic energy is also dependent upon an object’s mass.

Overall, she released four scientific works and five other works, solidifying her place in history in the fields of mathematics and physics.^[5]

5 Radiation

Marie Curie, a French scientist who was born in Poland, discovered much of what we know today about radiation. She studied radiation in depth, including uranium and thorium, finding both to be radioactive materials. She also came up with a way to measure the total amount of radiation.

Her major claim to fame, however, was the bold (at the time) assertion that radioactivity didn’t depend on an element’s form but on its atomic structure. She was the first person to use the term “radioactivity” and invented a new field of scientific study called atomic physics.

Marie Curie won the Nobel Prize twice–for physics in 1903 and chemistry in 1911.^[6]

4 Pulsars

The day was November 28, 1967. Two astronomers, Jocelyn Bell Burnell and Anthony Hewish, were about to make an amazing discovery—the pulsar—a rapidly rotating neutron star which shoots out a beam of electromagnetic radiation as it spins.

The chances were slim that they’d stumble upon one as the beam from a pulsar needs to be aimed directly toward Earth to be detected. They just happened to be looking at the sky on a clear evening when they made the discovery.

Jokingly, Burnell and Hewish called the electromagnetic pulses “Little Green Men,” suggesting that aliens might be trying to communicate with us through a beam. But it turned out to be a perfectly natural phenomenon in some stars.^[7]

The distinct pulses of radiation emitted from pulsars appear at regular intervals. The “pulsing” nature of the beam is due to the star spinning and the light repeatedly striking the observer’s line of sight.

3 Top Quark

In physics, top quarks are the heaviest of all the elementary particles. This was confirmed by the Large Hadron Collider in 2014. Quarks are tiny particles that make up neutrons and protons, which are two of the three components of atoms. The third component is an electron, also known as a fundamental particle because it cannot be broken down any further. Atoms are the building blocks of matter within our universe.

The six flavors (types) of quarks are up, down, strange, charm, bottom, and, of course, top. The top quark was discovered by Melissa Franklin and a team at Fermilab. This wasn’t the only time that Franklin made a grand discovery in the world of particle physics. She was also part of the team at CERN that discovered the long-anticipated Higgs boson.^[8]

2 Slow Light

Did you know that the speed of light can slow down in some cases?

It certainly can, which we know thanks to Danish physicist Lene Vestergaard Hau who discovered “slow light.” In a vacuum, light travels at 299,792 kilometers (186,282 mi) per second. However, when light travels through matter, it slows down.

By injecting light into something called a Bose-Einstein condensate (a state of matter), Hau and her Harvard team were able to slow down the speed of light to a mere 27 kilometers per hour (17 mph). Even more astonishing, her team made light stop in a Bose-Einstein condensate.^[9]

Hau will go down in history as the first person to ever actually stop light.

1 HIV

Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) has infected over 70 million people and killed over 35 million since its discovery in the 1980s. It is our modern-day version of the black plague in a very real way.

In 2008, French virologist Francoise Barre-Sinoussi shared the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine with Luc Montagnier and Harald zur Hausen. One-half of the prize went to Barre-Sinoussi and Montagnier for their work that discovered HIV. (Zur Hausen received the other half of the prize for discovering human papilloma viruses that caused cervical cancer.)

Barre-Sinoussi’s team sought to find out what was causing AIDs. Suspecting that it might be a retrovirus, they found it when they dissected the lymph node of someone who’d contracted AIDS.^[10]

Frighteningly, Barre-Sinoussi believes that a cure for HIV is next to impossible.

When we think of war heroes, most everyone thinks of men because women were barred from combat for most of history. Only recently, nations began to lift these bans and allow women to serve their countries and their interests openly. Here are 10 badass women who fought in combat alongside or in lieu of their male comrades.

10 Margaret Cochran Corbin
American War For Independence

Margaret Corbin was the first woman to receive a pension for military service from the US Congress. During the Battle of Fort Washington in 1776, her husband was killed while operating one of the two cannons providing defense against a charge of 4,000 Hessian troops. Instead of grieving, Margaret took his place on the cannon crew and fired at the enemy.

She was seriously injured in the jaw, arm, and chest before she was finally unable to continue. The British won the battle, and Margaret was captured and then released on parole. Though disabled from her injuries, she remained an active duty member of the Continental Army until her discharge in 1783.

9 Manuela Pedraza
Reconquest Of Buenos Aires

Manuela Pedraza fought during the reconquest of Buenos Aires after the first British invasion in 1806. She participated in the last and largest battle of the reconquest, which took three days.

She accompanied her husband into the fight and stood by him as he was killed by a British soldier. Then she took her bayonet and killed the man who had killed her husband. Picking up her husband’s musket, she killed another British soldier.

Manuela was given a military rank and placed in the Patricios Regiment. Her exploits during the reconquest have made her a hero in Buenos Aires culture, which gives an annual award in her honor to women recognized for social activism in Argentina.

8 Sergeant Milunka Savic
Balkan Wars And World War I

Milunka Savic is the most decorated female soldier of all time. She fought during the Balkan Wars and throughout World War I. During her service, she was wounded nine times, but that barely slowed her down. When her brother was called to fight for Serbia in 1912, she either accompanied or impersonated him and joined the army.

Due to her valor on the battlefield, she was not punished when her gender was revealed following her first injury from a Bulgarian grenade. Her commander offered to transfer her to the nursing corps, but she refused.

Standing at attention, Milunka proclaimed, “I will wait.” She remained there until he relented and returned her to the infantry. Her combat exploits continued into World War I where she was recognized for heroism by France, Russia, and Britain.

7 Senior Lieutenant Lydia Litvyak
World War II

Lydia Litvyak began flying small aircraft at age 15 and jumped at the chance to fight for her country when Germany invaded the Soviet Union. She forged her flight records by adding 100 hours of flight time and was admitted into a fighter regiment of all female pilots.

Lydia was later integrated into a mixed-gender unit. She brought down a fighter and bomber, earning her the nickname “The White Rose of Stalingrad” due to the misidentified lily painted on her fighter. She continued to fly for the Soviet Union and racked up a total of 11 solo kills and three shared kills.

Lydia was shot down in 1943 and confirmed killed in 1979. President Mikhail Gorbachev posthumously awarded her the Hero of the Soviet Union in 1990.

6 Nieves Fernandez
World War II

Nieves Fernandez was the only known female Filipino guerrilla leader who fought against the Japanese occupation of Leyte Island during World War II. She began her adult life as a schoolteacher but left that world behind when her nation was threatened by the Japanese. She rounded up 110 native men who crafted their own weapons and formed a guerrilla resistance.

With long knives traditionally used to cut vegetation and shotguns fashioned from sections of gas pipe, they successfully killed 200 Japanese occupiers. Captain Fernandez led her group for more than 2.5 years against the Japanese occupation, which caused the Japanese government to offer a bounty of 10,000 pesos for her head. She was wounded once in combat but survived the war and is remembered as a Filipino hero.

5 Yevdokiya Zavaliy
World War II

Following the destruction of her village during World War II, Yevdokiya Zavaliy provided emergency medicine to the injured and convinced the local cavalry commander to allow her to enlist. She was 16 at the time but said she was 18.

Yevdokiya began as a nurse but quickly learned to use small arms. She was wounded in the abdomen but refused to be relieved from service. Due to her shaved head and uniform, she was mistaken for a man and ordered to the front lines.

Yevdokiya fought as a man and was promoted to command a reconnaissance squad. After she was wounded, she was found out to be a woman. But instead of being returned to the nursing corps, Yevdokiya was given command of a submachine gunner platoon in 1943.

Her exploits were so well-known and she was so feared by the Germans that they nicknamed her “Frau Black Death.” By the end of the war, she was awarded more than 40 medals for honor and bravery.

4 Sergeant Leigh Ann Hester
Operation IRAQI FREEDOM

Leigh Ann Hester holds the distinction of being the first woman to receive the Silver Star since World War II. She is one of only 14 women in American history to be so honored for combat.

In March 2005, Sergeant Hester was providing convoy security while searching for improvised explosive devices (IEDs) when an attack erupted all around the vehicles. More than 50 insurgents fired machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) at the trucks as she dismounted with her team and led them through the kill zone.

She took up a flanking position and assaulted a trench with grenades. Then she helped to clear two additional trenches, killing three insurgents in the process. When the dust settled, three American troops were injured while 27 insurgents were dead, six wounded, and one captured. For her actions—which helped to save the lives of her fellow convoy members—Sergeant Hester was awarded the Silver Star.

3 Major Laura Nicholson
Operation ENDURING FREEDOM

In December 2013, Laura Nicholson, a Chinook pilot for the Royal Air Force, was conducting medical evacuations in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, when she came under heavy fire on a mission. She was called to rescue a wounded Marine on the battlefield and took her chopper into the firefight.

The aircraft took immediate fire. The onboard security team held the hostile landing zone while the wounded Marine was taken aboard. Major Nicholson successfully took the Marine to the hospital.

Once again braving the ongoing firefight, Major Nicholson returned to the same hostile area to rescue a woman who had been shot in the head during the crossfire. A crew member was shot in the leg, but Major Nicholson was able to get everyone back to safety. For her heroism in the face of enemy fire, she was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross.

2 Staff Sergeant Stacy Pearsall
Operation IRAQI FREEDOM

Some soldiers carry weapons, others carry cameras, Staff Sergeant Stacy Pearsall carried both. She enlisted in the Air Force at age 17 and entered a program for war photography at Syracuse University before being accepted as a combat photographer—a rare opportunity for women.

Sergeant Pearsall was deployed twice to Iraq. There, she documented the daily lives of her fellow servicemembers as they helped to rebuild and open schools one day while going after high-value targets the next. She was recognized twice by the National Press Photographers Association as Military Photographer of the Year and has since written two books about her service and experience.

She was injured in two separate IED attacks on vehicles that she was in, forcing her to take a medical retirement. For her service, Sergeant Pearsall was awarded the Bronze Star Medal along with other notable awards.

1 Chief Warrant Officer 3 Lori Hill
Operation IRAQI FREEDOM

Chief Warrant Officer 3 Lori Hill, the pilot of an OH-58 Kiowa helicopter, became the first woman to receive the Distinguished Flying Cross for heroism. She was following a lead chopper that came under heavy enemy fire.

Chief Hill drew fire away while simultaneously providing suppressive fire to help the troops on the ground engaging with the enemy. Her aircraft was hit with an RPG, which caused significant damage. But she was able to remain airborne and continued to communicate with and support the ground personnel.

The aircraft began to lose hydraulic pressure, and she took a round in her ankle. Though injured and piloting a badly damaged aircraft, Chief Hill was able to return to base and save the lives of her crew. For her actions, she was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, one of the United States’ highest military honors.

Giving birth is a personal and intimate experience. Some choose to do so at home, while others opt for the amenities that the hospital can offer. In some cases, however, there simply is no choice in where the baby is coming once it decides to come.

For the following women, the miracle of life happened in some strange yet memorable places, leaving them with stories to tell for years to come. Here are ten decidedly unusual places where women have given birth.

10 Walmart

While this may sound like the plot of the 2000 Natalie Portman movie Where the Heart Is, it is far from fiction.

An unnamed woman in Utah had no plans to give birth the day she went into Walmart to buy a few necessities in October 2016. After managing to complete her shopping trip, the woman and her husband went through checkout and were about to pay when she started feeling pains. By then, it became obvious that she was in labor, but before any other measures were taken, the woman insisted on paying first. Despite the manager insisting it wasn’t necessary, the woman paid for her merchandise and ended up being too far along for emergency services to get there in time to help deliver the baby.

The mother gave birth in checkout aisle 11 to a healthy baby boy before being taken to the hospital. Afterward, the store employees and managers stayed in contact with the mother and detailed their plans to throw her a baby shower, providing her with gifts such as diapers and formula and even a cake to celebrate the birth of the baby.^[1]

This is not the first baby to be born in a Walmart. Similar incidents have occurred in Georgia, Kansas, Colorado, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Virginia, New York, Indiana, and Quebec, giving a whole new meaning to the phrase “one-stop shop.”

9 McDonald’s

Breakfast is considered the most important meal of the day, and at a Sarasota, Florida, McDonald’s in December 2016, it was an important time of the day for a completely different reason.

April Jones was visiting her local McDonald’s to have breakfast with her mother during the latter’s shift on a regular Saturday morning. What April didn’t expect was for her breakfast to be interrupted by a man calling for help. Sean Jordan and his expecting wife Cathy, along with their two-year old son, had also stopped in McDonald’ for a quick bite to eat. While waiting for her food, Cathy had experienced a sudden need to use the restroom, and while she was in there, she began to go into labor. She called for help and was heard by her husband, who alerted the restaurant. A person in the next stall offered Cathy her jacket once Cathy announced she was in labor. Thankfully, April, a nurse who works with the elderly, was able to go to the mother’s aid.

By the time April joined the mother in the bathroom stall, Cathy had already started crowning. At this time, it also became obvious that the umbilical cord was wrapped around the baby’s neck. April was able to turn the baby boy and loosen the cord, but he was blue and not breathing on his own. Paramedics arrived on the scene, helping April cut the cord, and the baby was given oxygen.

The paramedics took both mother and son to the ambulance for treatment, and April was allowed to see them before they were taken to the hospital. At this point, the baby boy was breathing on his own and had opened his eyes.^[2] The experience had April considering going back to school to become a registered nurse and work in labor and delivery, deciding that she was, in fact, “lovin’ it.”

8 Chick-Fil-A

When a baby decides it’s on its way, the time between labor and delivery varies greatly. For one mother, making a pit stop on the way to the hospital didn’t seem to be a problem. Falon Griffin went into labor in July 2018 and was en route to the hospital when she and her husband Robert had to drop their two daughters off with a friend. The meeting point chosen? A San Antonio Chick-fil-A.

While Robert was bringing the girls over to meet their friend, Falon had a serious urge to use the restroom. Despite already being in labor, she managed to get out of the car and ask the manager if she could be allowed in. The manager agreed, but it turned out that Falon’s need to use the restroom was a sign of the labor progressing, and the baby was no longer waiting to get to the hospital to arrive.^[3]

Thankfully, the staff helped Falon and Robert, bringing them towels and standing by as Robert used his shirt to help deliver his newborn daughter right in the bathroom stall. The umbilical cord had been wrapped around the baby’s neck, not once but twice, yet Robert was able to loosen it without alerting his wife to the setback. The baby, named Gracelyn, was born in the bathroom stall, and the manager and Chick-fil-A staff warmed up towels to keep her warm until the paramedics arrived minutes later.

After the birth, the store owner pledged that Gracelyn would be able to eat free food there for life and would be guaranteed a job if she wanted it. The manager and staff were so excited that they consulted with the owner so that when Gracelyn turns one, her first birthday can be celebrated in the exact same place she was born.

7 Lifeboat

The use of lifeboats is normally reserved for dire circumstances, when it’s necessary to save the lives of others—or in this case, to help bring a new life into the world. On the Scottish island of Mull, the ferry runs only from 8:00 AM to 8:00 PM, leaving the emergency lifeboat as the only alternative to get back to the mainland. So at around 5:00 AM on August 3, 2009, Junelle Wilson and her husband boarded the Oban lifeboat, hoping they could get to the mainland in time for the paramedics waiting for them at the dock to take them to the hospital.

Junelle had realized she was going into labor, and due to the lack of alternatives, she and her husband made the call for the emergency lifeboat to take them. What Junelle didn’t expect was for her contractions to continue to increase and for her baby to decide that right then and there was the best time to come into the world, on a lifeboat in the bay just five minutes from Oban Harbor.^[4] Thankfully, the Oban lifeboat crew were prepared, and there was a midwife on board ready to help Junelle deliver her baby. With their help, Junelle gave birth to a healthy baby boy, and about 12 hours after she boarded the lifeboat, both Junelle and her son, Van Harris, were boarding the ferry to go back home.

For the crew of the Oban lifeboat, delivering babies is nothing new. Van Harris is one of four babies to have been born on the lifeboat as of 2016 and was the only boy so far.

6 Street Corner

Getting a cab in New York City can be difficult and time-consuming, but for one mother, getting a taxi was the least of her worries. Polly McCourt started to feel ill one afternoon in February 2014. After sending her oldest kid to a playground with a friend, calling for their babysitter to watch her youngest, and heading home, Polly’s symptoms started to worsen. She called her doctor, and Polly was instructed to go to the hospital—immediately.^[5]

By the time she made it into the lobby of her apartment building after calling her husband, her water had broke. Her doorman had already hailed a cab for her, which arrived at the same moment Polly realized she wouldn’t be making it into the cab, let alone to the hospital. The baby was coming now, right there on the sidewalk outside her building. With the help of her doorman and a crowd that had gathered, Polly delivered her baby girl outside her home.

A woman named Isabel Williams offered Polly and her newborn daughter her coat. Polly and her husband Cian, who arrived three minutes after their daughter was born, named the baby Ila Isabel, her middle name chosen for the kindness bestowed upon them by a stranger.

5 Airplane

In what was supposed to be a routine flight from San Juan, Puerto Rico, to Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, those on board received a different sort of in-flight entertainment. Despite sounding like the introduction for a TV show, a baby was born during a JetBlue flight in February 2019. The mother had boarded the plane and seemed fine, though it became obvious during the flight that the situation was about to take a turn.

Somewhere between Puerto Rico and Florida, the mother began to go into labor, and thanks to the staff on board, she was able to deliver a baby boy with no complications. The mother and baby were reported to be fine and were met on the ground by paramedics who checked them both over.

Despite the chaos of having a baby being delivered on the plane, the flight ended up arriving 11 minutes ahead of schedule.^[6] The baby is officially JetBlue’s youngest customer to ever fly with them. Coincidentally, the plane which hosted the birth is named “Born to Be Blue.”

Babies being born on planes isn’t exactly unheard-of. In 2017, a woman gave birth prematurely to a baby during her Jet Airways flight from Saudi Arabia to India, and the baby was given free plane tickets for life by the airline.

4 Six Flags

Theme parks are full of happiness, time spent with the family, adventure, and sometimes even unexpected surprises. In July 2018, a Georgia mom named Crusita was enjoying the day at the park with her daughter in Hurricane Harbor at Six Flags when she realized that something was off. She took her daughter with her to the first aid post and informed them that she was pretty certain she was going into labor.

The Six Flags team acted quickly, calling emergency responders in to help Crusita, and although they arrived quickly, Crusita was already too far along to make it to the hospital. Instead, Crusita had her baby in the theme park with no complications. The baby boy, named Matthew, was the second baby to be born at the park.^[7]

To celebrate the birth of Matthew, Six Flags offered both him and his mother Diamond Elite Memberships, allowing them to enter any Six Flags park for free for the rest of their lives.

3 New York Taxi

As the saying goes, when you know, you know. Chantal McKenna had been experiencing contractions since midnight one morning in July 2017. At 7:30 AM, she knew it was time to go to the hospital. Unfortunately, going anywhere in New York takes a bit of time, even if it’s just grabbing the elevator in your own apartment building.

Chantal and her husband, Mark, along with their doula, gathered up their things and headed to the elevator, which they found filled. Even though Mark announced that Chantal was in labor and had to go to the hospital, their neighbors only moved out of the way and then rode the elevator the whole 24 floors down while Chantal battled her contractions.^[8]

By the time they got to the bottom, their Uber had already left. Thankfully, their doorman was able to catch them a cab even though it was the morning rush hour. As the taxi crept through the slow-moving traffic, Chantal’s contractions kept speeding up, and by the time they got to Central Park, Chantal was well-aware that she was going to have her baby right there, in the back of the cab. The baby was born only a few minutes later, surprising both the doula and Chantal, who went to check on how far along Chantal was and found her baby’s head sticking out.

The cab driver had pulled over by that time, and emergency personnel were called, all while a crowd gathered, cheering and congratulating the couple. Paramedics checked out the newly named Josef, who was completely healthy, and the family was transported to the hospital—but not before paying their fare and generously tipping their cab driver.

2 A Strip Club Parking Lot

Nate Jones and his wife, Amenze, had planned out the delivery of their baby, but their plans were derailed on the way to the hospital in March 2011 when Nate was pulled over for speeding. Even though they weren’t given a ticket, their timetable was now cut short, and Amenze warned her husband that there was no way she was going to make it to the hospital.

Nate chose to pull into the nearest parking lot so that he could call 911. The parking lot in question was that of Flashdancers, a popular Arlington, Texas, strip club. The strip club was not unfamiliar to Nate, a reporter for the local newspaper who had covered the club on a few occasions. Their plans were once again changed when it was discovered that no one from the emergency medical personnel called in had ever delivered a baby before. Thankfully, Amanze knew what to expect, as did Nate, with this being their third child. With the help of paramedics, they were able to deliver their baby boy safely into the world.

Bouncers kept the growing crowd at bay; no longer were patrons interested in the show inside but were more focused on what was going outside. The baby, named William, was taken to the hospital and given a clean bill of health.^[9]

1 Inside A Hospital Elevator

Getting to the hospital in time can be one of the hardest struggles for mothers when their child decides to change its arrival plans. One mother, Katie Thacker, had the opposite problem in January 2012. After getting safely to the St. Joseph Medical Center in Tacoma, Washington, with her husband, mom, sister, and midwife in tow, Katie was transported along with three nurses to the 14th floor in order for her to give birth.^[10] On the way there, however, the elevator made an unplanned stop on floor 12. Deciding to get off to give Katie more space, as her contractions were increasing, her husband (Luke), mom, and sister got off and chose to take the stairs to the 14th floor. However, when they arrived, there was no elevator.

After the doors shut back on the 12th floor, the elevator seemed to have malfunctioned, leaving Katie and the nurses stuck between floors. Despite calling in the fire department for aid and reaching out to the elevator company in an attempt to get the elevator up and running again, the baby came before they could be freed. Katie gave birth in the elevator with the help of the nurses and her midwife while information was given to her husband through the nurses’ walkie-talkies. By the time they were able to get the elevator doors slightly ajar, almost two hours later, Luke was able to climb down and cut the umbilical cord.

The baby boy was handed up by his father through the doors and over to nurses. The infant was deemed to be healthy and in perfect shape. Katie and Luke decided to nickname their son Otis, after the company whose elevator he was delivered in.

Ancient Rome wasn’t known for its enlightened attitude toward women. They were expected to be homemakers and to stay out of public life. Yet some women did manage to gain political power behind the scenes—even if they had to be ruthless to keep it.

10Messalina

Messalina is best remembered for accusations about her wild sexual escapades, which Roman writers tended to throw at anyone they didn’t like. Pliny the Elder even claimed that she had sex with 25 men in a row to win a contest with Rome’s most famous prostitute.

This hostility probably came from the fact that Messalina was the most powerful woman in Roman history up to that point. Her husband was Claudius, who became emperor mostly because his ambitious relatives considered him a drooling idiot and never bothered having him murdered. When Caligula was assassinated, Claudius was found hiding behind a curtain and took the throne as the last man standing.

Messalina dominated her meek husband and soon controlled his administration. Anyone who opposed her risked being arrested on false charges. She even persuaded Claudius to execute her stepfather by saying she’d dreamed he was plotting against the emperor.

But she went too far in AD 48, when she married another man. It was probably a coup attempt, with Messalina and her new husband planning to replace Claudius entirely. Unfortunately, Rome’s bureaucrats preferred the easily manipulated Claudius and persuaded him to put the conspirators to death. They prevented Messalina from seeing Claudius before her execution, fearing she would be able to talk him out of it.

9Agrippina

After Messalina’s death, Claudius rewrote Rome’s incest laws and married his niece, Agrippina, a hardened veteran of imperial intrigue. (Her sister had been starved to death on Messalina’s orders.) As before, Claudius was easily pushed around by his new wife, who quickly took control of the empire. Agrippina even signed government documents and officially dealt with foreign ambassadors.

Agrippina had a son, Nero, from a previous marriage, and she was determined to make him emperor. She talked Claudius into adopting Nero and favoring him over his biological son, Britannicus. Anyone who opposed Nero was systematically eliminated.

After Claudius granted Nero equal imperial power, Agrippina decided that she no longer needed Claudius and served him a tasty dish of poisonous mushrooms. Lucky to the end, Claudius suffered a massive bout of diarrhea, which saved him from the poison. But Agrippina’s allies were everywhere, and Claudius’s doctor pushed more poison down his throat with a feather. Nero became emperor, and Agrippina’s triumph was complete.

8Poppaea Sabina

After Nero became emperor, Agrippina continued to exert influence behind the scenes. However, she met her match in her son’s lover, Poppaea Sabina.

Poppaea wanted Nero to marry her, but he was already married to Octavia, daughter of Claudius and Messalina. Agrippina had worked hard to secure the match (even framing Octavia’s first fiance for treason) and refused to allow her son to get divorced. Meanwhile, Poppaea (whose mother had been forced into suicide by Messalina) hated Octavia and demanded that Nero stand up to his mother.

Trapped between the women in his life, Nero chose Poppaea and gave his mother a boat designed to collapse and kill her. But Agrippina survived and swam to safety. Worse, she knew it was an assassination attempt because she had seen the crew of a “rescue” ship clubbing survivors to death with their oars. In a panic, Nero gave up on making it look like an accident and had his mother hacked to death. She supposedly went out bravely, telling the her son’s henchmen to strike the first blow at her womb.

7Julia Domna

After a male-dominated century, powerful women made a major comeback in Rome during the Severan dynasty, which was arguably a dynasty of women. The trend started with Julia Domna, wife and trusted adviser to Emperor Septimius Severus.

Domna really came into her own following Septimius’s death in AD 211, when he was succeeded by their sons, Caracalla and Geta. Domna played a dominant role in their administration and officially ran the empire while Caracalla was on campaign.

Although Domna was an excellent administrator, she was unable to prevent tragedy from stalking her family. First, Caracalla killed Geta in a fit of rage. Then, Caracalla was murdered by the prefect Macrinus. This was too much for Domna, who chose to commit suicide after hearing the news.

6Julia Soaemias

After murdering Caracalla, Macrinus seized power and declared himself emperor. But he underestimated the Severan women. Julia Maesa (Domna’s sister) and her daughter, Julia Soaemias, were determined to get revenge on Macrinus and restore their family to power.

In a campaign of furious intrigue, Soaemias and Maesa persuaded the legions of the East to support Soaemias’s son, Elagabalus. Since Elagabalus wasn’t actually a blood relation of Septimius Severus, they started a rumor that he was Caracalla’s illegitimate son by incest, which somehow worked in their favor.

Macrinus raced to put down the rebellion, but he was defeated and executed outside Antioch. Elagabalus became emperor, but the 14-year-old was uninterested in governing. Maesa and Soaemias were the real rulers of Rome during his reign.

5Julia Maesa

While Soaemias helped rule the empire, Elagabalus was allowed to indulge his every whim and soon developed a reputation for wild debauchery. He supposedly prostituted himself in the imperial palace and married a charioteer named Hierocles. Cassius Dio claimed that he offered a fortune to any surgeon who could give him a vagina.

On another occasion, he fell for an athlete named Zoticus, who supposedly had a huge penis. The jealous Hierocles spiked his rival’s drink, and “after a whole night of embarrassment, being unable to secure an erection, he was driven out of the palace, out of Rome, and later out of the rest of Italy.”

Whether these stories are true is debatable, but it’s clear that Elagabalus quickly alienated most of Rome, and his mother was unwilling to rein him in. His grandmother, Maesa, eventually stepped in and staged a coup, deposing Elagabalus in favor of his cousin Alexander, the second emperor she’d put on the throne. In a shocking show of ruthlessness, Maesa had her daughter and grandson executed to secure Alexander’s power base.

4Julia Mamaea

Maesa died shortly after putting Alexander on the throne. She was succeeded by her daughter, Julia Mamaea, Alexander’s mother and the last of the dynasty of women who effectively ruled Rome. Historians agree that Mamaea “totally dominated” her young son and ran the empire with the help of a council of senators.

She even joined the army on military campaigns, which was unheard-of for a woman. Unfortunately, the wars went badly, and the legions eventually mutinied. Soldiers murdered Alexander and Mamaea as they clung together in their tent, ending the Severan dynasty.

3Ulpia Severina

Ulpia Severina was the wife of Emperor Aurelian, a renowned general who was murdered by his own soldiers in AD 275. Other than that, almost nothing is known about her. We’re only aware of her existence from monuments and coins, which suggest that she ruled for a brief period after Aurelian’s death.

During Aurelian’s reign, Roman mints issued some coins in his name and some coins in Severina’s name. (This was standard practice.) However, coins from the time of Aurelian’s death only appear to have been issued in Severina’s name. The coins also bear images consistent with Severina trying to shore up her power.

Ancient sources mention a gap between Aurelian’s death and Tacitus taking the throne, and some historians speculate that Severina ruled during this period, only to be erased from history after Tacitus took charge. However, her coins were already in circulation and couldn’t be erased. Severina may have been the first woman to rule the Roman Empire in her own right.

2Aelia Pulcheria

Aelia Pulcheria was a childhood prodigy who declared herself regent for her brother when she was 15—only two years older than her brother. She kept a tight grip on power for the next four decades. To shore up her position, she took a vow of perpetual chastity and cultivated a religious reputation.

However, Pulcheria ran into problems when her brother died in 450. Although she had long been the true power in the Eastern Roman Empire, it was unheard-of for a woman to rule alone. The easiest solution was for Pulcheria to get married, but she refused to violate her vow of chastity. In an unusual move, she eventually did marry a senator named Marcian, who became her co-emperor after he publicly agreed that they would never have sex.

1Galla Placidia

The daughter of Emperor Theodosius, Galla Placidia lived during the dying days of the Western empire. As a young woman, she proved her toughness by confirming a death sentence for the woman who had raised her. A few years later, the Visigoths sacked Rome and kidnapped Placidia. They intended to ransom her to her brother, Emperor Honorius, but he declined to pay, and the Visigoths dragged Placidia around Europe for the next six years.

In 414, Placidia married the young Visigoth king Athaulf. They were supposedly genuinely in love, but Athaulf was murdered within the year. Placidia returned to Rome, where she married Emperor Constantius. After Constantius died, a usurper tried to steal the throne from the couple’s infant son. Placidia fled to Constantinople, where she persuaded her niece, Pulcheria, to give her an army.

Returning to Rome, Placidia made her son emperor and ruled as regent for the next 14 years.

Hysterical witch-hunting spread from Europe to the UK in 1590. James VI of Scotland, later to become James I of England, was the most notable royal witch-hunter. He even published Daemonologie (literally, the science of demons) to inflame the passion of witch-hunting zealots. James described witchcraft as “high treason against God”, which meant that all manner of horrors were justified in wringing confessions from the accused.^[1] Many of the precepts that defined the Salem witch trials a century later, were forged in the flames of maybe 4000 witches executed in the relatively tiny country of Scotland.

It seemed that almost any testimony or evidence, however absurd, could be used to convict those considered unpleasant in society. The following are ten of the most incredulous reasons to be condemned as a witch and sentenced to death.

10 Guilty by floating

We start our witch-hunt in the small village of Milton in Bedfordshire, the year is 1613. Two horses pulling a cart of corn to marked were spooked on the road by a black pig. The sow was said to have spun around in the road, and the horses bolted. Servants managed to catch and calm the animals, but on their return the same thing happened! The sow was seen later entering the house where Mother and Mary Sutton lived. Gossip spread quickly, reaching Enger, the landowner. His 7 year old son took it upon himself to throw stones at Mary calling her a witch. Days later the boy died.

Enger blamed Mary and her mother and decided to prove her guilt by swimming. First she was dunked in the dam with a rope around her waist and only sank slightly. Not satisfied with this they tied her thumbs to opposite big toes and swam her a second time. She span around as if caught in a whirlpool and floated^[2] – this proved she was indeed a witch. If we turn a woman into a wheel she’s bound to spin like a wheel! Mother and Mary were found guilty of witchcraft and hanged on 7th April 1613.

9 Witches bridle

Agnes Sampson was a well respected healer and midwife. But in 1592 she became embroiled in the witch-hunt of North Berwick. The return voyage of James VI with his new Danish wife was beset with storms. These were attributed too witchcraft and conspiracy with the devil to assassinate the king.

Torture and sleep depravation were used to extract confession. Sampson was restrained with an instrument called a witch’s bridle: four prongs placed in the mouth, then attached to a device fastened to the wall.^[3] Agnes was one of around 70 people who confessed to witchcraft. (Anyone who’s had a brace fitted can understand that you will say anything to make it stop). She was strangled to death and her body burned.

8 A child’s testimony

Imagine next time your child hates you for limiting their Xbox time, if they had the power to convict you to your death. That’s exactly how 10 people in Pendle, Lancashire met their fate in 1612. Jennet Device lived with her mother Elizabeth, grandmother Demike, older sister Alizon and brother James. Demike was not liked by the villagers not least for her unfortunate appearance of one eye high, one low, looking in different directions. So when Alizon cursed a pedlar who then collapsed, there were many eager fingers pointing at her and Demike.

Jennet Device entered the court where her grandmother Demike and sister Alizon stood accused of witchcraft. Her mother Elizabeth screamed out at Jennet bringing the little girl to tears. Jennet demanded her mother be removed. She then climbed the table and delivered a calm and convincing testimony. “My mother is a witch and that I know to be true. I have seen her spirit in the likeness of a brown dog, which she called Ball”^[4].
The court believed her and convicted her whole family and many of the neighbors of causing death by witchcraft. The day after they were hanged at Gallows Hill.

7 Witchfinder General

There is a heart carved above a window of number 17 Tuesday Market Place, Kings Lynn. This is the place where the heart of Margaret Read struck the wall after bursting from her chest at the moment of death by burning. The heart then beat its way to the nearby River Ouse and sank amidst the wildly bubbling water. Margaret had been convicted as a witch.

In this same part of East Anglia around 1646, some 60 years later, Matthew Hopkins the Witchfinder General^[5] was paid handsomely to clear the towns of witches. Along with torture and sleep depravation, Hopkins also used a spike to test any scar or nipple to see if it was immune to pain. This would indicate the person had suckled the devil. The test was however grossly unfair as the 3 inch needle actually retracted into the spring-loaded handle under pressure. How ironic that a heartless charlatan was paid £20 (at a time when the average workers wage was 2 pence) for condemning the poor – we wouldn’t let that happen nowadays would we!

6 Familiars

We all make judgements of people based on the kind of pet they have, and some owners even look like their pets. But what if your pet is a black cat named Rutterkin, this kind of familiar could get you the label of being a witch. And so it was that the witches of Belvoir in 1690 were convicted for consorting with familiars.

Joan Flower and her two daughters, Margaret and Philippa were employed at Belvoir Castle, until Margaret was dismissed for stealing. Not long after the whole family became sick and the Earl’s eldest son Henry died. The Earl and Countess were convinced that the three women were to blame, and had them taken to Lincoln jail. Joan would not confess and demanded bread and butter be brought so that if she were not innocent she would choke on it. After one mouthful she dropped dead! At which point her daughters quickly confessed to witchcraft involving incantations and the familiar Rutterkin. They were convicted and hanged.^[6] We would suggest a dog for your next pet!

5 Vicious Kiss

On a cold night in Cork, Ireland, an old woman named Florence Newton begged for a piece of bread at the home of John Pyne. She was refused and sent on her way by the housemaid Mary Longdon. A time later Florence caught up with Mary carrying a pail of clothes for washing, she threw the pail from her head and kissed her violently, saying “Mary, I pray thee, let thee and I be friends; for I bear thee no ill will.”^[7]

Mary soon after experienced fits and trances, even vomited up needles, pins, horse-nails, wool and straw. Newton was brought to trial for witchcraft. One of the tests she had to perform was reciting the Lord’s prayer which she struggled to do. Her jailor Davy Jones helped her to learn the prayer, and in gratitude she kissed his hand. A few weeks later Davy died, cursing the kiss.
Records of the outcome are lost, but it’s likely she was sentenced to death.

4 Unable to recite Lord’s Prayer

The last witch condemned to death in England, in 1712, was Jane Wenham, the witch of Walkern. Once again inability to recite the Lord’s prayer was used against her. She supposedly struggled to speak the words “forgive us our trespasses” and “lead us not into temptation” during her interrogation.^[8] Her accusers also pricked her with a pin up to the head, but instead of drawing blood only a watery liquid was produced. This was a sure sign of guilt.

Attitudes were beginning to change and the judge John Powell was particularly skeptical to accounts of witchery. He was sympathetic to the old woman, dismissing accusations of flying with the assertion that there’s no law against that. The jury still found Jane guilty of witchcraft which carried the sentence of death. However Powell suspended the sentence and in time Jane may have been granted a royal pardon from Queen Anne herself.

3 Convicted by roof tile

If you thought you had heard the most absurd tests of witch craft already, how about conviction by roof tile! It was 1586 in Faversham, Kent, when Sarah Cooke’s daughter Jane fell ill. She was instructed to take a tile from the roof of the woman she suspected of being responsible. This tile was to be placed in the fire where it would ‘sparkle and fly round the cradle’. The worried mother took a tile from her neighbor Joan Cason, and the ritual proved positive. To further compound her guilt, a visit by Joan to enquire into the child’s health led to disastrous consequences. Jane died just a few hours after looking Joan in the face.

The jury at her trial attempted to show leniency, acquitting her of murder and only convicting her of conjuring spirits. However a lawyer who was present quibbled the charge of conjuring spirits and Joan was hanged anyway three days later.^[9] Shouldn’t the roofers have been charged for using sub-standard tiles though?

2 Too brave to be a mere woman

Janet Forsyth was a woman with a talent for predicting the weather. But in 1627 this would not mean a glamorous TV career! One morning after a premonition she pleaded with her sweetheart Benjamin Garrioch, not to go to sea. The fisherman however set out despite her warning. A thick fog descended and all were lost. Janet was branded a witch and spent her days increasingly isolated.

Years later a ship was spotted in trouble off Westray. Janet rallied the village for support to go to their aid, however they were more interested in the ship breaking up and leaving its cargo on the beach. Undeterred Janet piloted her small boat single-handed to aid the ship and bring it into safety of Pierowall Bay.^[10] This act of bravery sealed her fate, it was inconceivable that a mere woman could be capable of such an act. Tried and sentenced to death for witchcraft, the story has one last twist. On execution day the dungeon she had been held in was empty. The romantic conclusion is that her lover, thought lost, had in fact been press-ganged into the navy. He had returned just in time to make her escape.

1 Backwards writing

The craze for persecuting witches largely missed Wales, their courts were so full up with felons that prosecuting witches was seen as a luxury. In all there were five executions for witchcraft in Wales.^[11] The first of these was Gwen Ferch Ellis in 1594. Gwen was a woman with a reputation for healing, but could she also use her powers for ill? If she had kept herself to herself she would probably have gone unnoticed.

Her mistake was crossing social boundaries. The offense that brought her to trial was leaving a charm, a poem written backwards, in the parlor of one of the local gentry. It was seen as a sign to inflict harm on the household. She had the chance to flee but was adamant she had done no wrong. Many of the people her charms had helped testified against her. She was found guilty and hanged.

An emerging author currently working on a first novel. Lives in Shrewsbury, England.

Throughout history, a few remarkable women managed to rise to the top of male-dominated societies and take power in their own right. Their names echo through history: Hatshepsut, Cleopatra, Wu Zetian. But it was more common for powerful women to need to cloak their rule through male puppets. These women have largely been forgotten today, even though behind the scenes they dominated some of the most powerful empires in world history.

10Marozia

In the early 10th century, Europe seemed in a state of terminal decline. The Frankish Empire was crumbling, and the power of the pagan Vikings was growing. In the South, Muslims had conquered Spain and Sicily, while the nomadic Hungarians had swept across the Carpathians. Only the Catholic Church seemed to hold Europe together. And the Church was led by a remarkable woman: the senator Marozia.

Marozia was the daughter of Count Theophylact, the most powerful man in Rome. After his death, Marozia inherited his power base and declared herself “senatrix.” When Pope John X tried to challenge her, she threw him into prison, where he quickly and mysteriously died. She then installed a succession of puppet popes, with herself the real power behind the Throne of Saint Peter.

In 931, Pope Stephen VII died and Marozia appointed her son, John XI, to replace him. By now, her power in Rome was complete, but she wanted more. In 932, she sealed a deal to marry Hugh of Arles, the king of Italy. The Pope was to declare the couple emperor and empress, rightful overlords of all of Europe.

But a tiny incident would derail all of Marozia’s grand plans. From a previous marriage, Marozia had a teenage son named Alberic who hated his new stepdad. When Hugh slapped Alberic in the face for spilling some water, it was the last straw. Alberic incited the Roman citizens to riot against the foreign Hugh, who only escaped by climbing down the city walls with a rope. Alberic then imprisoned his mother and took her place as the real ruler of Rome.

9Toregene

After Genghis Khan died, power passed to his third son, Ogedei. He was an inoffensive alcoholic chosen mainly because his older brothers hated each other and would probably have started a civil war. Ogedei seems to have left much of the job of ruling to his wife, Toregene, as several proclamations in her name predate his death.

After Ogedei drank himself into an early grave, Toregene officially took power until a successor could be elected. She proceeded to delay the election for five years while she ruled one of the greatest empires in history, stretching from China to Russia. The Seljuk sultan journeyed to pay homage to her, as did the Grand Prince Yaroslav, who died mysteriously after feasting with her.

While she ruled the empire, Toregene sought to ensure her power base by having her son Guyuk elected khan. Since everyone hated Guyuk, this required a massive campaign of bribery, which Toregene funded by imposing an aggressive new form of tax farming. She died in 1246, one year after finally securing her son’s election to succeed her.

8Kosem Sultan

The most powerful woman of the 17th century came to Istanbul as a slave around 1600. She was Greek originally. But she took the name Kosem when she was sold to the imperial harem, where she soon became the favorite wife of Sultan Ahmed I. She made her first grab for power after Ahmed’s death, when she maneuvered his mentally ill brother, Mustafa, onto the throne.

Mustafa was quickly deposed by his nephew Osman, and Kosem retreated into the background for a few years. She returned in 1623 when her young son Murad IV became sultan. (Osman had been murdered by his Janissary slave-soldiers in the interim.) Kosem became regent during her son’s childhood, ruling the empire for over a decade.

Kosem again took power in 1640 when Murad died and was replaced with his mentally ill brother Ibrahim. (Mentally ill brothers were something of a tradition among the Ottomans.) She quickly found Ibrahim too erratic to control and organized his murder in 1648. After that, she continued to rule as regent for his young son Mehmed IV.

7Turhan

After Mehmed IV took the throne, Kosem continued to rule as regent, modestly directing her ministers from behind an ornate curtain. This was deeply resented by the boy’s mother, Turhan, who thought the regency should have been hers. But Kosem’s power seemed unassailable. She commanded the personal loyalty of the Janissary Corps, and her vast estates made her one of the richest people on Earth.

To make matters worse, Kosem realized that Mehmed and his mother were beginning to show signs of independence and began making plans to have them killed. In 1651, Turhan was tipped off to a plot to poison the sultan’s sherbet and knew she had to act.

Turhan decided that the only option was a rapid palace coup, giving Kosem no time to summon her Janissary allies. On September 2, Turhan and her eunuchs rapidly attacked Kosem’s apartments and killed the guards. Kosem tried to hide in a closet. But she was dragged out and strangled with some curtains.

With Kosem gone, Turhan took the regency and effectively ruled the empire until 1656, when she agreed to transfer power to the Grand Vizier Koprulu Mehmed Pasha.

6Sorghaghtani

Although almost forgotten today, Sorghaghtani was one of the most famous women of the 13th century. The Persian chronicler Rashid al-Din wrote that the “great emirs and troops” of the Mongols “never swerved a hair’s breadth from her command.” Meanwhile, an impressed poet declared that “if all women were like unto her, then women would be superior to men.”

Sorghaghtani was the wife of Tolui, the youngest son of Genghis Khan. When Tolui died, Sorghaghtani was appointed regent of his estates, even though her oldest son was already 23. She quickly established herself as a power player in Mongol politics and helped to place Guyuk Khan on the throne.

When Guyuk died in 1248, Sorghaghtani saw her chance. She formed an alliance with the powerful Batu, khan of the Golden Horde, and began a massive campaign of bribery to have her son Mongke elected Great Khan. In this she was opposed by Guyuk’s family, but Sorghaghtani was relentless and even personally oversaw the torture and execution of Guyuk’s wife, Oghul Qaimish.

Sorghaghtani was successful, and all four of her sons became powerful khans thanks to her years of careful planning and manipulation.

5Ahhotep

Ahhotep I lived in interesting times. In the 1500s BC, ancient Egypt seemed to be crumbling under internal pressures and a fearsome group of invaders known as the Hyksos. Ahhotep was the sister-wife of Pharaoh Seqenenre Tao, who was executed by the Hyksos in the 1560s. Analysis of his mummy reveals that his death involved two axe blows to the head and a dagger to the neck.

After her husband’s death, Ahhotep became regent for her young son Ahmose I. As well as ruling Egypt, she seems to have personally rallied her husband’s forces to fight off the Hyksos and Egyptian rebels. After this feat, she began wearing the “Golden Flies of Valor,” a decoration given to distinguished Egyptian generals.

Her son later erected an inscription in her honor: “Give praise to the lady of the land, the mistress of the lands, whose name is (held) high in every foreign country, who has made many plans . . . who took care of [Egypt]. She looked after its troops, she guarded them, she rounded up its fugitives, brought back its deserters, she pacified the South and she repelled those who rebelled against her.”

Ahhotep lived to a ripe old age (perhaps around 90) and was buried with great honor, wearing the Golden Flies of Valor around her neck.

4Zoe

Although she formally ruled with a series of husbands, Zoe was unquestionably the true ruler of the Byzantine Empire, which stretched throughout the Balkans and Asia. In fact, her only real rival was her sister Theodora, who eventually claimed the title of co-empress before Zoe could sideline her again.

Zoe and Theodora were the daughters of Constantine VIII. Since the emperor had no sons, Zoe was married to the powerful urban prefect Romanos, who became emperor when Constantine died. Zoe at once exiled her sister, poisoned Romanos, and married her chamberlain, who was put on the throne as Michael IV.

When Michael IV died, his nephew tried to seize the throne and exile Zoe. The palace was immediately attacked by an enraged mob who demanded their empress back. With the citizens of Constantinople behind her, Zoe had the unfortunate usurper castrated, blinded, and exiled to a monastery.

Unfortunately, the mob also demanded Theodora. Zoe was forced to accept her sister as coruler until Zoe outflanked Theodora by marrying Constantine IX Monomachus, who became co-emperor. Zoe dominated the empire until her death in 1050, after which her husband and sister continued to rule.

3Arsinoe

Arsinoe was the daughter of Ptolemy I, a Macedonian general who had seized Egypt when Alexander the Great died. Arsinoe was married to Lysimachus, another general who had taken control of Thrace and soon became a key player in the wars between Alexander’s successors. Among other things, Arsinoe poisoned Lysimachus’s son by his first marriage and then had her own children murdered by her second husband.

Around 279 BC, Arsinoe fled back to Egypt, where her brother Ptolemy II had inherited the throne. She quickly proved the most formidable politician in the kingdom, having her brother’s wife exiled on false charges and then marrying him herself, scandalizing Greek society.

As queen, Arsinoe soon sidelined her brother and established herself as the effective ruler of Egypt. She was referred to as a pharaoh in official documents and issued coins in her name, depicting her in full pharaonic regalia. She and her brother were often depicted as Isis and Osiris in art, invoking ancient Egyptian traditions to justify their marriage.

Arsinoe died around 268, leaving behind a powerful cult centered around her worship. Her brother never remarried, although he ruled for another 20 years.

2Empress Wei

Wei was the wife of Emperor Zhongzong, who ruled Tang Dynasty China in the early eighth century. Her husband had succeeded Wu Zetian, the only woman to rule China in her own right. Wei was said to be a great admirer of Wu and sought to emulate her power and ruthlessness.

Luckily, her husband was widely agreed to be a “timid and weak-willed person” who was happy to leave the business of governing to his tougher and smarter wife. She quickly built a powerful clique at court, including many of Wu’s former ministers. Anyone who opposed her risked death. On one occasion, the Minister of War brutally murdered an officer just for criticizing the empress.

After five years, Wei’s reign hit a problem when her husband suddenly died. (It was widely rumored that Wei had poisoned him.) With the official emperor dead, Wei knew that challengers would emerge to claim the throne. So she concealed his death until she could call in 50,000 troops to surround the palace.

Unfortunately, her enemies were inside the palace. Her husband’s sister and nephew, Princess Taiping and Li Longji, staged a coup one night. Wei tried to escape, but was killed by the soldiers she had ordered to surround the palace. They had decided they preferred to be on the winning side.

1Nur Jahan

In the 1620s, the mighty Mughal Empire stretched across the Indian subcontinent. Officially, it was ruled by the emperor Jahangir. In reality, Jahangir was a weak, alcoholic, opium addict and true power rested with his wife, Nur Jahan.

This was no great secret: Nur Jahan issued proclamations in her own name and had coins minted bearing her image. She even held the royal seal, which was used to stamp all official orders.

A later visitor to the court wrote that women’s power “is sometimes exerted in the harem; but, like the virtues of a magnet, it is silent and unperceived. Nur Jahan stood forth in public; she broke through all restraints and custom, and acquired power by her own address.”

Her archrival was the general and minister Mahabat Khan. When Nur Jahan had his son-in-law arrested, Mahabat responded by seizing Jahangir in a coup. Nur Jahan personally led her troops in an attempt to seize him back and then organized a cunning escape plan. Mahabat’s gamble had failed, and Nur Jahan’s power was left unchecked.

There are a lot of women centric tv shows out there. Several of these shows are unabashedly, explicitly about women, their lives, their wants and desires. Today viewers are becoming more and more sensitive on how women are presented on-screen and these engaging stories are full of feminist ideas. Ready or not, here are the 10 greatest women centric TV shows you need to watch.

The 10 Greatest Women Centric TV Shows Ever

10. Lost Girl

Premiered on 2010.

Lost Girl is a supernatural drama from Canada. Highly popular and critically acclaimed, Lost Girl follows our bisexual protagonist Bo Dennis who learns that she can feed on the sexual energy of humans. After the discovery Bo embarks on a search of her origin, on her way helping those who need her help. Interestingly Bo’s sexuality plays a significant role in the show’s narrative device.

8. Once Upon A Time

Premiered on 2011.

Created by the writers of Lost and Tron: Legacy, OUAT is quiet a unique American television series. It’s a fairy tale drama where modern-life and legend collide. Set in a  seaside town of Storybrooke where resident are living unaware that they are characters from fairy tales stories doomed into this real-world by the curse of the Evil Queen.

9. Buffy The Vampire Slayer  (1997-2003)

This American television series has got a huge fandom with cult-following. Pretty evident by the name, our bad-ass lady, Buffy Summers is a vampire slayer. Bagging a number of titles like  Time magazine’s “100 Best TV Shows of All-Time”,  Empire ’​s “50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time” et al and awards such as Emmys and Golden Globe nominations, Buffy has influenced the direction of numerous other television series.

7. The 100

Premiered on 2014.

Set in a post-apocalyptic world, this American drama flourishes on an excitingly suspenseful atmosphere. 97 years after the Nuclear War that wiped off almost all life on Earth, a bunch of juvenile criminals are sent to find out exactly how habitable the Earth has become. But when you set a hundred teenagers free to do whatever the hell they want, what follows next is chaos.

Regarded as one of the “coolest and most daring series on TV”, The 100 has the first post-apocalyptic and The Cartoon Network Television Network’s first bisexual lead in a show.

6. Carmilla

Premiered on 2014.

Carmilla is a web series from Canada based on the novella of the same name by Sheridan Le Fanu.  Staring the very talented Natasha Negovanlis and Elise Bauman, the story is set at the fictional Silas University in Styria, Austria. We follow Laura, a freshman student enthusiastic journalism student trying to investigate the disappearance of her roommate and other university girls while also dealing with her new, dark, brooding and mysterious roommate, Carmilla.

The series follows a multi-platform storytelling method and is available on YouTube for free where the first season has got over 21 million views. Carmilla has been raved for its almost all-female cast and amazing representation of LGBT characters.

5. Outlander

Premiered on 2014.

British-American drama series is based on the brilliant novels of the same name by Diana Gabaldon. The story revolves around a married World War II nurse Claire Randall (played by the incredible Caitriona Balfe) who falls through time and finds herself in the Scottish highlands in 1743.

Outlander was voted as the Favorite Cable Sci-Fi/Fantasy Show in People’s Choice Award and the  Critics’ Choice Television Award for Most Exciting New Series.

4. Agent Carter

Premiered on 2015.

Agent Carter follows the character Peggy Carter, an SSR agent who in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) features beside Captain America. Hayley Atwell plays the brilliant agent who after serving in the World War II faces sexism when working for the Strategic Scientific Reserve (S.S.R.) while trying to save the world from evil forces.

The show is a real gem. A stylish drama with a winning combination of cheeky-fun, sophisticated actions and burst of excitement.

3. Orange is the New Black

Premiered on 2013.

An American comedy-drama OINB is based on the memoir of Piper Kerman – Orange Is the New Black: My Year in a Women’s Prison published in 2010.

The first series focuses on Piper Chapman who in her mid-thirties is sentenced to prison for her association with a drug runner 10 years ago. In the two following seasons, the show’s primary focus expands from Piper to over other prison-mates in the women’s federal prison as they try to make their way through the system, relishing their past lives and adjusting to their lives behind bars. In 2014, OINB was named the most watched show on Netflix and has won a slew of awards and nominations since.

2. The Legend of Korra

Premiered on 2012.

A follow-up series to ‘Avatar: The Last Airbender’, Korra is created by the brilliant animation directors, Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino. Set in 70 years after the events of ‘The Last Airbender’, the show follows the next Avatar, ‘Avatar Korra’ and her quest to bring balance in a time of political and spiritual unrest in a modernizing world.

This American animated television series has been highly praised for its production quality, for addressing socio-political issues like terrorism, fascism, anarchy and unrest. The Legend of Korra has also been critically and commercially acclaimed for its positive representation of races, gender, ageism and sexual orientation.

1. Orphan Black

Premiered on 2013.

It’s a Canadian sci-fi television series starring Tatiana Maslany in lead role. Everything about Orphan Black is a potential spoiler. But without ruining the fun, let’s just know that the show follows a street-wise woman Sarah Manning with a troubled past. One day she witnesses a suicide of another woman who looks just like her. Sarah decides to assume the identity of that woman for monetary benefits, unknown to the epic mess she was getting into.

Raved by both fans and critics, Orphan Black is an edge-of-the-seat thriller that has feminist subtext interwoven into the plot. After 2014 Emmy snub, Maslany has been nominated for this year (2015) Emmy Award for Lead Actress in a Drama. My fingers are crossed.

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The Wild West of the late 1800s and the turn of the next century was a land with loose laws, big egos, and, of course, adventure. It attracted fiery individuals, with spirits as wild as the terrain, who left colorful pages in history. It was a place where rebellious women roamed free and pushed all the envelopes ever made for the fairer sex. These 10 women reveled in the freedom of the frontier and led lives in a way that still has us talking about them today.

10 Calamity Jane

Born: Martha Jane Cannary
Lived: May 1, 1852–August 1, 1903
Areas: Wyoming, Utah, Arizona

Calamity Jane is perhaps the most famous of the wild women of the West and for good reason. She pretty much did it all when it comes to the things that brought these women notoriety. She skillfully shot a gun, told tall tales, dabbled in prostitution, committed hefty crimes, and drank—a lot.

Besides her reputation as a drunken outlaw, Calamity Jane was known for her generous heart. She and her siblings were orphaned when Jane was 14, and she took it upon herself to care for them.

This responsibility helped to shape her into a true enigma.^[1] While one of her earliest-known careers was as a dance hall girl, she also became famous for wearing men’s clothing and riding alongside the roughest cowboys on whatever work or action she could find.

Jane ended up with a plethora of careers, including a short stint as a storyteller in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show. However, none of these careers lasted long due to Jane’s unfortunate chronic alcoholism.

Like many of the notable characters from the Wild West, Jane was unashamed about telling a fib. She is known for being a sidekick of Wild Bill Hickok and bragged about their friendship until the day she died. However, many who knew them both said that Jane was, in fact, obsessed with Bill rather than having a true partnership or friendship with him.

Although she was buried next to him, his friends said at the time that the location of the burial was a joke on Hickok. He was rumored to have said that he had “absolutely no use” for Jane.

9 Big Nose Kate

Born: Maria Katalin Horony
Lived: November 7, 1850–November 2, 1940
Areas: Arizona, Texas

Known primarily for being the longtime companion of Doc Holliday, Big Nose Kate was an indomitable woman to be reckoned with.

Kate’s family emigrated from Hungary to Iowa when she was 10 years old. Tragically, the roughness of the frontier left Kate and her siblings orphaned only three years later. In true outlaw fashion, she ran away from her foster home at age 15 and became a stowaway on a riverboat headed for St. Louis.

She proceeded to dabble in various careers and move around until meeting Doc Holliday in Texas in 1877. History, in fact, would not be the same without Kate, as she was the one who introduced Doc Holliday to Wyatt Earp.^[2] Kate and Doc moved to Tombstone, Arizona, with Wyatt and his brothers in 1880, and the rest is history.

Her legacy continues to this day. A Tombstone saloon named in her honor is still one of the best cowboy bars in the entire area.

8 Poker Alice

Born: Alice Ivers
Lived: February 17, 1851–February 27, 1930
Areas: Colorado, South Dakota

Perhaps even more than today, the Wild West was a place where women were given permission to experiment with careers not normally seen as fit for women. Alice Ivers embraced a career as a poker player, a profession still largely dominated by men.

Alice was born in England to conservative parents in 1851. Her father had the wanderlust bug of the age and relocated the family to Colorado. Alice seems to have caught the ailment herself as she fled her family at a young age to marry her first husband, Frank Duffield. This bold act would change the course of Alice’s life forever as Frank was a poker enthusiast, to say the least.

Preferring to accompany her husband out at night, she sat at the tables behind him while he played. When he died in a mining accident a few years into the marriage, Alice took up gambling^[3] herself. This led to another interesting Wild West crossover: She made big bucks playing at a bar in Colorado owned by Bob Ford, the man who killed Jesse James.

Alice was known to use her skills to finance a lavish lifestyle and made a show of heading to New York City with large earnings to stock up on the couture fashions of the day. She was also exceptionally shrewd as a professional gambler. It is widely believed that she married her last husband rather than pay off a large gaming debt she owed him.

Humorously, it is reported that Alice refused to play on Sundays despite her nontraditional ways. However, she was still arrested several times for running girls, bootlegging, and public drunkenness.

7 Belle Starr

Born: Myra Maybelle Shirley
Lived: February 5, 1848 – February 3, 1889
Areas: Missouri, Texas

Belle Starr was destined to live a life rubbing shoulders with notable outlaws. She was childhood friends with both the James brothers and the Younger brothers (of the Younger Gang), all native to Missouri. All the families eventually ended up in Texas, where their bonds were strengthened.

In time, Belle married a Cherokee man named Sam Starr who was addicted to a life of crime and could not tolerate traditional employment. During their marriage, Belle became skilled as an organizer for local cowboy gangs, providing refuge for fugitives, bootleggers, and thieves. She was well-known for her class, always riding sidesaddle and in her best black velvet. Belle loved the outlaw life and only quit after Sam was gunned down.

She lived the rest of her life attempting to have less notoriety. Her cause of death, two days before her 41st birthday, remains a mystery with several colorful theories.

At the time, it was reported that Belle was ambushed^[4] on her way home from a neighbor’s house late at night. Some believe that she had come from a dance and was killed by a rebuffed attendee with whom she had refused to dance. Still others believe that it was her own son who committed the murder in a fit of adolescent rage.

6 Sally Scull

Born: Sarah Jane Newman
Lived: c. 1817–Unknown Date of Death
Areas: Texas

Sally Scull loved to shoot, loved to intimidate those around her, and loved to marry. She perhaps attracted so many suitors because she intrigued everyone she met. She played poker, was a good shot, and could ride a horse. Sally could also lasso as well as any man and better than many. She combined this with a strong taste for men and must have been a striking and unforgettable woman to encounter.

Sally learned to be brave, bold, and fierce as a young girl growing up in Comanche territory. One famous story recalls her mother chopping off the toes^[5] of a local Native American who was trying to break into their home. By the time the family moved to Texas a few years later, Sally had learned to be a quick draw and a skilled horsewoman.

Sally became famous for her skills as what we now call a cowgirl. But her legacy has perhaps survived because of her five husbands and her involvement in the deaths of two of them. In one instance, Sally reportedly fired in shock at her current husband after he poured ice water over her head to wake her one morning.

In another case, her husband and the horse on which he was riding met their deaths when a strong river current overcame them. Rather than expressing any grief, Sally famously said that she wished her husband’s belt buckle had been saved so she could retrieve the $40 it was worth.

Given her abilities and knowledge of the area, Sally was the perfect person to help the Confederacy during the Civil War. She seems to have stayed busy and profited from transporting cotton during those years.

Following the war, her trail runs cold. It is not even known when or how she died. Had she been born a decade later, she could have built a career as an outlaw or frontierswoman. Nonetheless, she still left quite a legacy.

5 Laura Bullion

Lived: October 1876–December 2, 1961
Areas: Texas, Tennessee, Missouri

The apple didn’t fall far from the tree with this wild woman. Laura Bullion came from a family who lived on the edge. Her father was a bank robber who was friends with Wild Bunch gang member Ben Kilpatrick (aka “The Tall Texan”), and her uncle was a train robber. Needless to say, her family life was less than stable and she left home at age 15 to make her own way.

As with many infamous female outlaws of this age, Laura started her career of crime as a prostitute. Sadly, she began very early and retired around age 17 when she transferred to robberies with Butch Cassidy’s Wild Bunch. She was likely welcomed into the group because of her father’s connections, and she did, in fact, become romantically involved with Kilpatrick for a time.

Laura is known to have participated in many heists^[6] with the Wild Bunch. She is believed to have been involved with many more because she often dressed in men’s clothing and may have gone unrecognized. As with many other outlaws, Laura retreated into a life of traditional employment and a low-profile existence after she was released from prison.

Perhaps most notably, prior to her death, Laura was one of only three people believed to know the true identity of Etta Place, a secret that she happily took to her grave.

4 Etta Place

Lived: 1878–Unknown Date of Death
Areas: Utah, Argentina, California

No list of female Wild West outlaws would be complete without at least a mention of Etta Place, the mysterious companion to Harry Longabaugh (aka “the Sundance Kid“). The two were so devoted to each other that she was the only person to flee the country with him and Butch Cassidy and the only woman to stay with a member of the Wild Bunch as long as she did. At the same time, few people from recent history can claim such notoriety and mystery.

Despite Etta being one of the only women to have penetrated the inner circle of the gang and stay with them long-term, little is known about her life before or after her relationship with Longabaugh. It is widely believed that she met the Sundance Kid while working as a prostitute, possibly in Utah, and that the two eventually became devoted companions. When Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid escaped to South America in 1901, Etta was at their side.^[7]

There are at least half a dozen theories about Etta after she parted ways with Longabaugh, most of them involving Etta living as a prostitute or outlaw. It is known that she lived in San Francisco in 1907, at least for a little while, but the trail runs cold after that. Estimations about her date of death range from 1922 to 1966. Now that’s one wild woman with a talent for mystique!

3 Pearl Hart

Born: Pearl Taylor
Lived: 1871–Unknown Date of Death
Areas: Missouri, Arizona

The success of train robbers in the Wild West was lucrative but short-lived. Pearl Hart, besides earning a name as a female gang member, is also famous for being involved in the last of such recorded robberies.

Pearl was a true rebel. Born into a well-to-do family, she eloped at age 16 with an abusive alcoholic with whom she had an on-again, off-again relationship until 1893. Then she discovered Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show and became infatuated with the cowboy life.

In 1898, she ended up in Phoenix running a tent brothel. When the nearby mine closed, she and a male cohort decided to rob a stagecoach for funds. She cut her hair short and dressed in men’s clothing to commit the crime.

The pair was quickly arrested and ultimately acquitted. (Pearl’s passionate plea to the jury that she needed the money to care for her elderly mother actually worked.) But she was arrested^[8] and convicted a short time later for mail tampering.

Pearl had evidently learned a thing or two about using her female charms to her advantage. She used her notoriety to finagle a comfortable stay during her five years in prison. Not only was she granted a comfy mountainside suite, it came complete with an outdoor yard. She was also allowed to visit with the public and pose for photos (for which she received compensation).

Pearl was pardoned in 1902. While the reasons remain unknown, many believed that it was because she became pregnant and the authorities wanted to keep the circumstances secret. She was given a ticket to Kansas City, Missouri, and proceeded to dabble in various careers, even going full circle and working anonymously as a storyteller for Buffalo Bill’s show.

2 Fannie Porter

Lived: February 12, 1873–January 1, 1940
Areas: San Antonio

When it came to the famous outlaws of the Wild West, Fannie Porter rubbed shoulders with them all. However, it was not as a fellow outlaw or lover that she knew them. It was because she owned a brothel that most of them frequented over the years.

As with many of the frontier women who dabbled in prostitution, Fannie started her career at a young age—15 years old. By age 20, she had already become known for her business acumen as a high-end brothel owner, running one of the cleanest, safest, and classiest establishments in Texas.

Fannie didn’t just supply outlaws with short-term company. Many of her “girls,” as she referred to them, became lovers and companions to the most famous Wild West figures.

Until becoming the girlfriend and accomplice to Kid Curry, Della Moore worked at the brothel. She returned after the relationship ended. Lillie Davis was a companion to Will “News” Carver of the Wild Bunch and claimed to have even married him before he died.

Most famously, the mysterious Etta Place is believed by many to have met the Sundance Kid while she was working for Fanny (rather than in a brothel in Utah). However, this has not been confirmed.

As the outlaws disappeared into obscurity and the Golden Age of the Wild West came to an end, Fannie also faded from the public eye. Some say she retired rich,^[9] some say she married rich, and some say she returned to England to live well. Whatever the case, many famous outlaws have her to thank for introductions of the most provocative type.

1 Lottie Deno

Born: Carlotta J. Thompkins
Lived: April 21, 1844–February 9, 1934
Areas: Texas, New Mexico

Born Carlotta J. Thompkins, this wild woman was so skilled at poker that she was eventually given the name “Deno,” which was a shortened version of dinero (“money”). Unlike many women who made names for themselves living on the edge of the law during this time, Carlotta was from a wealthy family and from parents who gave her ample care and affection.

She learned to play cards by spending time with her father, a successful gambler and horse breeder. After he was killed in the Civil War, Lottie began her own career at the poker table.^[10]

She quickly added fugitive-companion to her resume when she fell in love with Frank Thurmond, also a professional gambler. He was accused of murder, and the two of them went on the lam, happily using poker to support their lifestyle.

The pair ended up in Fort Griffin, a quintessential cowboy town, and became friends with Doc Holliday. Fearful of being caught, Lottie and Frank hid their relationship until they were married years later. In Fort Griffin, Lottie’s fame grew as a poker player who was not to be challenged. She became the subject of songs, paintings, novels, and numerous short stories.

Lottie and Frank were a couple with their eyes on the big picture. They eventually married in 1880, used their savings to invest in a number of legit businesses, and settled in New Mexico. There, they became leaders in their community. Their later life found Frank as the vice president of a bank and Lottie as the cofounder of a hospital.

Janice Formichella is an American-born traveler of the world currently residing in Bali, Indonesia. She loves history, gin, girl talk, her bullet journal, and a good list. You can follow Janice and her adventures on Twitter and on Instagram.

These days, there are numerous commercials of girls diving into pools or frolicking through wildflower fields, all because they can, thanks to their awesome tampons and other feminine products. But the first pads were not invented until 1888, and even then, it wasn’t an everyday item. Women oftentimes could not afford the product, and it wasn’t until much later that they became more affordable and common. Tampons didn’t come till 1929. So what did women do before then?

10Rags

Rags are an obvious stand-in for a pad. Fabric is absorbent and can be relatively long-lasting, as well as abundant. Since at least the 10th century, women used rags or some kind of cloth as a way to absorb the flow. These were also reusable; once the rags had done their job, women would just wash them.

This practice lasted up until the nineteenth century, at least, since that is when the pad was invented. Of course, since not all women could afford pads at the time of their invention, it’s likely, if not certain, that women continued to use rags up into the 20th century.

9Papyrus

The Ancient Egyptians supposedly used softened papyrus as a tampon. Papyrus is a plant that grows naturally in Egypt and was used for numerous purposes in antiquity, primarily as paper for writing. To make papyrus pliable, women would simply soak it in water. The water softened it and would bring out a natural stickiness to hold multiple pieces together.

The characteristic of pliability and softness, as well its abundance, certainly makes it a decent tampon. Unfortunately, we cannot know for sure this was done. Since ancient texts were often written on papyrus itself, which is a very vulnerable material, any documentation of such a thing, if there ever was any, is lost.

8Wool

In Ancient Greece, wool was supposedly used as a tampon. Typically, ancient uses are left to just evidence and reasoning, but in this case, there is better record. The wool tampon was a treatment written by (or on behalf of) Hippocrates. Wool tampons are also logical, as that’s a resource the Greeks had.

Hippocrates was a physician from Ancient Greece during the fifth and fourth centuries, and he is considered the father of medicine. He has many written works that describe his plethora of diagnoses and “discoveries.” Some are groundbreaking, but others are not entirely so, as our modern medicine has shown. For example, he said that fat women could not conceive because their fat crushed down on the uterus, and that the only way to conceive, therefore, was to lose the weight. Of course, without proper technology and understanding, it is reasonable that someone of his time would deduce something that, in today’s world, is outrageous.

7Cedar Bark

Cedar bark, as painful as that might sound, was used by Native American women as a menstrual pad and even as diapers. Typically, when we think of bark, we think of the rough hard side of a tree. When it comes to cedar, it is true that it is hard on the side of the tree; however, it does have a few special properties that could make it a decent, though still not very comfortable, pad. First of all, cedar bark is very lightweight and thin. Secondly, and most importantly, it is absorbent.

The moisture retention qualities as well as its lightness make cedar a good candidate for a pad or diaper, especially with relatively limited resources.

6Buffalo Hide

Buffalo hide was used by the Arikara women as a sanitary pad.

The Arikira tribe, related linguistically to the more well-known Pawnee tribe, is located in the northern United States in North Dakota, Montana, and parts of Wyoming. Buffalo had a multitude of uses in Native American life. Of course, the meat was used for food, but the other parts of the beast were far from wasted. The bones were made into knives and tools, even boiled for glue. The hooves and horns were used for cups or other vessels. The sinews were made into bowstrings and other threads, to sew clothes with. Clothes were made from the buffalo skin. Other items made from buffalo skin were tipis and bags, among other useful items, including sanitary pads.

Tanning buffalo hides involves soaking and scraping. The skin, just off the buffalo, is soaked in water, stretched, and then scraped to remove the hair. This process of soaking, stretching, and scraping continues until it is finished. Then it is time to dry it. To dry it, and to make the hide, the Native Americans would smoke it. That is, they would have it held over a fire and let the heat dry it and allow properties from the smoke enhance the hide.

By the end of this process, the skin becomes relatively soft and pliable. This would make it a decent menstrual pad, especially compared to cedar bark.

5Natural Sponges

In ancient times, women in coastal areas, like Greece, used natural sea sponges as tampons. Sponges, as we all know, are very absorbent. Whether using a sponge straight from the sea is safe is worth questioning, though.

Since this was thousands of years ago, there is little information of this topic available, so it is difficult, if not impossible, to know what harm using the sponges might have caused and whether the sponges were even treated in any way before they were used. Today, however, this has been looked at, and it has been decided that sponges might not be so safe. With an increased fear of toxic shock syndrome, the use of sponges in modern times grew, so the Federal Drug Administration stepped in and, after analyzing scientific studies, declared that they’re “significant risk devices” due to bacteria, yeast, and other harms. Despite this, these sponges are still sold and used by numerous companies, and technology has advanced since the FDA made that statement in 1995. With more advanced technology comes more thorough cleaning and disinfecting processes, so the risks might be less.

The ancient Mediterranean women, however, did not have the FDA, nor did they have much to clean the sponges, except perhaps boiling them in water. If these sponges are risky in today’s world, they were most likely much more so thousands of years ago.

4Grass

Grass was used in some form—a pad or a tampon—by women in Africa as well as Australia. The first form, a pad, was simply a bandage of sorts made of grass and vegetable fiber. Vegetable fibers are materials like flax or cotton that go into making fabrics. The tampons were made by constructing rolls of grass and roots.

The use of grass in either form could not have been very pleasant. Some species of grass, like carpet grass, can be soft enough that it might be suitable to use. Other grasses, perhaps more often than not, are itchy, rough, dry, or painful. Africa has many of these grasses, like nine awned grass. Of course, some other grasses are not as pointy and painful, given how many animals graze and would have to eat the grass. Nevertheless, grass in any form was probably not ideal for menstrual care.

It is fair to note, however, that menstrual care in Africa is still lacking. In many places, women still have to use rags and rewash them daily. Sometimes they don’t dry completely by the time they need to be used, so bacterial infections and other diseases can occur. Still others have to resort to leaves or paper.

3Paper

In Ancient Japan, women would supposedly use rolls of paper as a tampon and bandaged it in place. This paper was held in place by a bandage called kama (totally unrelated to the Hindu text Kama Sutra). Understandably, this device had to be changed an average of about 10 times a day.

Paper in Japan at this time, though, was surprisingly durable and absorbent as far as paper goes. Good-quality paper, called washi, was made in Japan at an unmatched pace by AD 800. This paper was made of plant fibers, and during production, they were left long, instead of crushed up like Western paper. Between the production method and the sheer nature of the plants, this paper was relatively strong, absorbent, and lightweight.

These qualities are superior to today’s paper, so if these women were changing eight to twelve times a day, imagine how often women would have to change with today’s inferior paper.

2Rabbit Fur

Supposedly, women used rabbit fur back in the day as a menstrual pad. There are multiple contexts that state this, but there are very limited, and few sources verify this claim. As frequently as it is written in passing, there might be some weight to it, but take it with a grain of salt.

Just because there is a lack of sourcing does not necessarily mean it is not possible. Cultures like the Native Americans, African cultures, and others certainly used the fur of rabbits and many other animals for a variety of purposes, like clothing and blankets.

Given how soft and pliable the fur is, it would not be surprising if women chose to use this to catch their monthly flow, but we do not know for sure.

1Nothing!

In 19th-century Europe, women just let nature run its course naturally. This was due mostly to the fact that one, nothing was invented yet, so they had nothing to go buy. Two, they couldn’t afford to buy anything if they could. Three, they could have used a homemade pad, but sparing rags or tearing up sheets might have been too costly to spare. In this case, it is mostly poor women who opted out of any kind of pad.

This practice can’t be just centered on 19th-century women. Common sense leaves room for these circumstances to apply to women throughout the ages. Even today, any woman can get in a bind and have no choice but to free bleed. In fact, some women even do it intentionally.