In July 1917, Mona Chalmers Watson was named the first Chief Controller of Britain’s Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) when it was formed. The thousands of WAACs worked as cooks and waitresses, clerks, communications operators, drivers, and more. She was already noteworthy as a suffragist, physician, and the first woman to receive her MD from the University of Edinburgh.
Discoverer of sex chromosomes
Working with her husband, she co-discovered allergen-specific antibody proteins called immunoglobulin E (or IgE), publishing their findings in 1966
Philippine revolutionary who joined the revolutionary nationalist army Katipunan in 1895 to fight for her country’s independence from Spanish colonizers.
Czech botanist Johanna Döbereiner moved to Brazil in 1951, where she pioneered the study of how plants and microbes interact, such as how certain bacteria can promote plant growth.
1800s Jamaican nurse and businesswoman
In 1945, Chinese immigrant Chao Yang Buwei published How to Cook and Eat in Chinese. It introduced both the term and technique now ubiquitous in many American kitchens: stir-fry.
French-Tunisian ophthalmologist most known for developing the picosecond, ophthalmic Nd:YAG laser for eye surgeries.
Edie Windsor was in her 80s when she sued the U.S. government. Her wife, Thea Spyer, died in 2009. The following year, Windsor received a $363,000 tax bill—estate taxes that, had the government recognized their marriage, would have been nonexistent.
German primatologist