History's Inspiring Women

Dear Reader: Before you continue reading this blog post, we would like to mention how these are not all the inspirational women for there were and are many more, if you can think of any; please comment down below. Many Thanks- Mae and Esther :-) P.s: This is not in any particular order. 

1. Joan of Arc was a French peasant girl who lead the French army into battles against the English until her capture in the spring of 1430. She was the daughter of a French farmer and his wife. At an early age, her mother began teaching her the ways of the Catholic faith, which led her to become a devout Christian. When she was thirteen, Joan started to claim that she was receiving messages and visions from God, she believed that God was commanding her to lead the French in a victory against the English. At this time, Joan took a vow of chastity. However, when she was sixteen years of age, her father did attempt to marry her off, yet this came to nothing. In the May of 1428, Joan went to the local magistrate, begging him to participate in the army. Nowadays, women are able to enlist but back then it was unheard of. At first the magistrate declined to let the girl join but soon Joan acquired a group of followers, attracted to her by her persistent attitude. When she was eventually allowed to join she cut her hair short and dressed in mens' garments. Then she set off to see the French royalty. There she promised the Dauphin a promise that he rather liked the sound of! Joan promised that she would restore the Dauphin back to power in France. As a result she was provided with armour and seated on a white horse whilst she was paraded through the streets. Thankfully, Joan proved to be an epic soldier. Unfortunately she was captured and in 1431, Joan was burnt at the stake for witchcraft and heresy. Before her death however she did managed to get the Dauphin to become king of France. After her death, Joan was proclaimed a saint and innocent but it was a bit to late by then! Nineteen year old Joan is an early example of gender equality and showed that she could achieve things that not every man could achieve! 
2. Margaret of Anjou was a French princess. When she was fifteen she was wed to King Henry VI of England. From then on, you would expect this young woman to have lived a life normal to Medieval Royalty if it had not been for her husband's bouts of insanity and the Cousins' Wars (aka: Wars of the Roses). By marriage, Margaret was on the Lancastrian side and she stayed firm and loyal to them throughout her lifetime. Witnesses described this young queen as strong willed, passionate and proud. After Henry VI lost Normandy in 1450, he seemed to weaken mentally, in that same year Margaret gave birth to their only son Edward. In 1461, the Yorks (led by Edward of York- later Edward IV) won a battle which began the Lancastrians slow downfall. This lead Margaret to take her eleven year old son and travel to the safety of Scotland. When Lord Warwick fell out of favour with now King Edward IV, he came to Margaret and married his youngest daughter- Anne Neville to Prince Edward, thankfully though Prince Edward was killed not long after. Margaret led armies, ruled the country on behalf of her insane husband and was one of the most powerful and ingenious mastermind.  She died in Anjou in 1482. Margaret's life can teach anyone, not just women, that if you can gain trust then you will be rewarded, not necessarily with leading armies but with little responsibilities that can increase.
3. Pocahontas was born a Native American princess. Historians believe that the name 'Pocahontas' was just a nickname which translates into 'playful' from her native language, her  birth name was reportedly Matoaka, yet when she was baptised as a Christian, she took on the name 'Rebecca', possibly after the mother of Jacob and Esau from Genesis in the Old Testament of the Bible. Although a daughter to the chief of her tribe, Pocahontas birth year is unknown, however historians estimate it to be around 1596. When Pocahontas was around eleven years old, in the May of 1607, the English arrived near where she lived. Pocahontas and her father first met the Englishmen in the winter of 1607; Captain John Smith (who is just as famous as Pocahontas) was captured by Pocahontas's uncle and brought to the tribe. Then the tribe leaders forced Smith's head onto a rock and prepared to smash the skull with their wooden clubs. It was at this moment that Pocahontas made her debut act. In jumping before her relatives, she prevented the execution of Smith thus changing her fate. In 1609, Smith suffered an injury as a result of a spontaneous gunpowder explosion, as a result he was sent back to England from America. However the English told Pocahontas that he had passed away so she stopped visiting the English settlement of Jamestown. Later Pocahontas learned that Smith had not died but was happily living in England. After that, she married another settler named John Rolfe and went to England with him. In 1617, Pocahontas and her infant son- Thomas-  became gravely ill with a fever. Thomas survived but Pocahontas died in Gravesend, Kent aged 20/21 years old. In the years of living in Virginia with her tribe, she brought peace between the English and her tribe and also showed courage as a young girl. 
4. Anne Frank was only an innocent teenager when the Second World War broke out. Her and her family (father- Otto, mother- Edith and sister- Margot) were Jewish and living in Amsterdam when the Nazis invaded the Netherlands and implied the same rules and regulations for Jews that discriminated them in society and also gave them a terrible name. Already the family had moved from their native Germany to escape prejudice and now they were experiencing the unjust Nazi terror in Holland.  Meanwhile the Franks were abiding by the rules and living a peacefully as could be expected when Margot was sent an official letter which called her up to report to a Nazi Work Camp. Thankfully Otto and Edith were not going to allow their family to be split up so they immediately began making secret plans to go into hiding. Soon after, the Franks moved into the secret Annex at the top of the place of which Otto was in charge. They shared the small dwelling with another Jewish family and a Jewish dentist.   Throughout this increasingly tough time, Anne kept a diary in which she shared her dreams and hopes for the future as well as the daily occurrences that took place in their hiding place with her imaginary friend- Kitty. Despite how awful this time was for a growing girl, Anne was mostly always positive about life. She wrote: "I keep my ideals, because in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart." and also: "I don't think of all the misery, but of all the beauty that still remains.". Unfortunately, in 1944, the Franks and the other people in  the Annex were betrayed and they were split up and deported to Auschwitz Death Camp in Poland. Anne died the following year of typhoid. Otto was the only survivor. Anne was just a teenager but she was living and suffering during one if not the most horrendous genocide in the history of the world, and yet she remained positive and is a role model to many people in the world.   

Sources:

~ HISTORY.com: Joan of Arc- Facts & Summary

~ Wikipedia: Joan of Arc

~ Philippa Gregory: Margaret d'Anjou 

~ Encyclopaedia: Margaret of Anjou facts, information, pictures
~ Wikipedia: Pocahontas
~ Mornus: The Real Pocahontas
~ Biography.com: Anne Frank