Explorers
The first woman in space flew solo
Valentina Tereshkova orbited Earth 48 times in 1963 in a capsule she could not steer, spending more time in space than every American astronaut combined up to that date.
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Amelia Earhart's last message was about running low on fuel
She had flown 22,000 of 29,000 miles around the world when she vanished near Howland Island in 1937. The search that followed was the most expensive in US history at the time.
She had to move to France to learn to fly
No American flight school would accept Bessie Coleman, so she learned French and trained in Paris, becoming the first Black woman in the world to hold a pilot's licence in 1921.
She was buried by an avalanche and summited 12 days later
Junko Tabei's Everest team was hit at 6,300 metres and she was dug out unconscious. In 1975 she became the first woman on the summit, and later the first to climb the highest peak on every continent.
A reporter beat Jules Verne's fictional record
Nellie Bly circled the globe in 72 days in 1889 with one small bag, after already faking insanity to expose an asylum from the inside. She travelled by ship, train and rickshaw.
She skied to both poles
Ann Bancroft crossed the ice to the North Pole in 1986 and the South Pole in 1993, the first woman to reach both, hauling a sledge heavier than she was.