15 FEMALE WARRIORS WHO MADE AN INDELIBLE MARK ON HISTORY!

Women and...warriors! 

 

They were mothers, sisters, daughters, and wives. But above all these women were warriors. All across time, and all around the globe, they brandished swords and guns, fought battles, and faced off with royalty. Though outnumbered by their bands of brothers in battle, these fearsome female fighters have each made an indelible mark on history.

1.Ching Shih

Ching Shih (1775–1844) prominent pirate in middle Qing China, early 19th century. A brilliant Cantonese pirate, she commanded over 300 junks manned by 20,000 to 40,000 pirates — men, women, and even children. She challenged the empires of the time, such as the British, Portuguese, and the Qing dynasty. Undefeated, she would become one of China and Asia's strongest pirates, and one of world history's most powerful pirates. She was also one of the few pirate captains to retire from piracy.

2. JOAN OF ARC

Joan of Arc (6 January c. 1412 – 30 May 1431), nicknamed "The Maid of Orléans" , is considered a heroine of France for her role during the Lancastrian phase of the Hundred Years' War, and was canonized as a Roman Catholic saint. Joan said she received visions of the Archangel Michael, Saint

Margaret, and Saint Catherine of Alexandria instructing her to support Charles VII and recover France from English domination late in the Hundred Years' War. The uncrowned King Charles VII sent Joan to the siege of Orléans as part of a relief mission. She gained prominence after the siege was lifted only nine days later. Several additional swift victories led to Charles VII's coronation at Reims. This long-awaited event boosted French morale and paved the way for the final French victory. On 23 May 1430, she was captured at Compiègne by the Burgundian faction, which was allied with the English. She was later handed over to the English and put on trial by the pro-English Bishop of Beauvais Pierre Cauchon on a variety of charges. After Cauchon declared her guilty she was burned at the stake on 30 May 1431, dying at about nineteen years of age. 

 

3. Triệu Thị Trinh

 

Lady Triệu ( 225–248) was a female warrior in 3rd century Vietnam who managed, for a time, to successfully resist the Chinese state of Eastern Wu during its occupation of Vietnam. She is also called Triệu Thị Trinh, although her actual given name is unknown. She is quoted as saying, "I'd like to ride storms, kill sharks in the open sea, drive out the aggressors, reconquer the country, undo the ties of serfdom, and never bend my back to be the concubine of whatever man." She has also been called the Vietnamese Joan of Arc.

4. Teuta 

Teuta was an Illyrian queen and is frequently evoked as a fearsome "pirate queen" in art and stories dealing with Albanian past. When Teuta’s husband King Argon died, she became a very powerful woman. With her stepson Pinnes too young to rule, Teuta was the queen regent of the Ardiaei, the most powerful tribe in Illyria (now the Balkan Peninsula). The power hungry queen set her sights on Dyrrachium (modern-day Durrës, Albania), capturing the city and fortifying it in her name. When her fleet was not attacking nearby cities, it was attacking nearby vessels. Teuta’s pirate army plundered a number of Roman merchant ships as it tore its’ way through the Adriatic.

5. NAKANO TAKEKO

Nakano Takeko was a Japanese female warrior of the Aizu domain, who fought and died during the Boshin War. Nakano, born in Edo, was the daughter of Nakano Heinai, an Aizu official. She was trained in literary and martial arts, specialising in a form of Ittō-ryū one-sword fighting. She also became a skilled instructor in the use of the naginata, a bladed polearm. Nakano formed an unofficial unit of twenty women armed with naginata, including her mother and sister. The group took part in a counter-attack designed to break the siege, during which Nakano killed five enemy opponents before taking a fatal bullet to the chest. Afraid that the enemy would take her head as a trophy, she asked her sister to instead decapitate her and bury the head. The shogunate forces eventually lost the siege to the better-armed Imperial forces. As requested, Nakano’s sister buried her head under a pine tree at the Hōkai-ji Temple and a monument was erected there in her honour. During the annual Aizu Autumn Festival, a group of young girls take part in the procession to commemorate the actions of Nakano and her band of women warriors.

6. QUEEN Boudicca

 

Boudicca was the Celtic Queen of the Iceni tribe of modern-day East Anglia, Britain, who led a revolt against Rome in 60/61 CE. The Iceni King, Prasutagus, an independent ally of Rome, divided his estate between his daughters and King Nero of Rome. When Prasutagus died,

however, his lands were taken by Rome and the Iceni lost their status as allies. When his wife, Boudicca, objected to this action she was flogged and her two daughters raped. She mounted a revolt against Rome which left the ancient Roman cities of Camulodunum, Londinium and Verulamium in ruins and over 80,000 Roman citizens of Britain dead. She was defeated at the Battle of Watling Street by the Roman Governor Gaius Suetonius Paulinus chiefly by his judicious choice of battlefield and allowing her army to cut off its own escape route by encircling their rear with their wagons, animals and families. Boudicca is said to have committed suicide by poisoning herself after her defeat.

7. Queen Zenobia

 

Zenobia was a 3rd-century Queen of the Palmyrene Empire in Syria who led a famous revolt against the Roman Empire. Zenobia became queen of the Palmyrene Empire following Odaenathus' death in 267. 

Zenobia was the wife of Odaenathus, ruler of the Roman colony Palmyra in present-day Syria. When he and his eldest son were assassinated, Zenobia declared herself queen. Not content to rule a mere colony, she seized Egypt, invaded other Roman holdings, and announced her independence from the Empire. Aurelius, emperor of Rome, struck back, defeating her in 274 AD.
 

8. Margaret of Anjou 

 

Margaret of Anjou ( 23 March 1430 – 25 August 1482) was the wife of King Henry VI of England. As such, she was Queen of England from 1445 to 1461 and again from 1470 to 1471.

She was one of the principal figures in the series of dynastic civil wars known as the Wars of the Roses and at times personally led the Lancastrian faction. Owing to her husband's frequent bouts of insanity, Margaret ruled the kingdom in his place. It was she who called for a Great Council in May 1455 that excluded the Yorkist faction headed by Richard of York, 3rd Duke of York, and thus provided the spark that ignited a civil conflict that lasted for over thirty years, decimated the old nobility of England, and caused the deaths of thousands of men, including her only son Edward of Westminster, Prince of Wales, at the Battle of Tewkesbury in 1471.

Margaret was taken prisoner by the victorious Yorkists after the Lancastrian defeat at Tewkesbury. In 1475, she was ransomed by her cousin, King Louis XI of France. She went to live in France as a poor relation of the French king, and she died there at the age of 52.

9. Joanna of Flanders

Joanna of Flanders (c. 1295 – September 1374), also known as Jehanne de Montfort and Jeanne la Flamme, was consort Duchess of Brittany by her marriage to John IV, Duke of Brittany. She was the daughter of Louis I, Count of Nevers and Joan, Countess of Rethel, and the sister of Louis I, Count of Flanders. Joanna organized resistance and made use of diplomatic means to protect her family and her country. In the siege of Hennebont, she took up arms, dressed in armor, and conducted the defence of the town. She eventually led a raid of soldiers outside the walls of the town and demolished one of the enemy's rear camps. She was an earlier patron for women, and a possible influence to Joan of Arc.

10. Emilia Plater  

Emilia Plater (Emilija Pliaterytė) - Polish-Lithuanian commander in the November Uprising against Russia in the 19th century, who became a symbol of resistance and was

immortalised in a poem by Adam Mickiewicz. She was a Polish-Lithuanian noble woman and a revolutionary from the lands of the partitioned Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. She fought in the November Uprising and is considered a national hero in Poland, Lithuania and Belarus, which were former parts of the Commonwealth. She is often referred to as the Lithuanian Joan of Arc, while actually her most widely known portrait is often mistaken for a picture of Joan of Arc herself in worldwide popular culture (as in the series Charmed), despite the fact that "Joan of Arc" is anachronistically portrayed in Emilia's 19th-century clothing.

11. Caterina Sforza 

 

Caterina Sforza (1463 – 28 May 1509), was an Italian noble woman and Countess of Forlì and Lady of Imola first with her husband, Girolamo Riario, and, after his death, as a regent of

her son, Ottaviano. The descendant of a dynasty of noted condottieri, Caterina, from an early age, distinguished herself by her bold and impetuous actions taken to safeguard her possessions from possible usurpers, and to defend her dominions from attack, when they were involved in political intrigues that were a distinguishing in Italy. When Pope Sixtus IV died, rebellions and disorder immediately spread through Rome, including looting of his supporters' residences. In this time of anarchy, Caterina, who was in her seventh month of pregnancy, crossed the Tiber on horseback to occupy the rocca (fortress) of Castel Sant'Angelo on behalf of her husband. From this position, and with the obedience of the soldiers, Caterina could monitor the Vatican and dictate the conditions for the new conclave. Famous was also her fierce resistance to the Siege of Forlì by Cesare Borgia who finally was able to capture her dressed in armor and a sword in hand. Caterina's resistance was admired throughout all Italy; Niccolò Machiavelli reports that many songs and epigrams were composed in her honour. She had a large number of children, of whom only the youngest, Captain Giovanni dalle Bande Nere, inherited the forceful, militant character of his mother. In the following centuries Caterina was remembered in the folklore as Tigre di Forlivo (The Tiger of Forlì).

12. Saint Olga 

 

Saint Olga ruled in Kievan Rus' from AD 945 to 960. In 945, a tribe of Drevlyane killed her husband, King Igor. Princess Olga avenged this death four times. The first time, she buried twenty ambassadors from Drevlyane alive. The second time, she set fire to a bathhouse that was being used by another group of Drevlyane ambassadors. The third time, Princess Olga managed to get about 5,000 Drevlyane drunk, and then ordered her soldiers to assault and (presumably) kill them. Lastly, Princess Olga burned the entire city of Drevlyane, using sparrows and doves to which were attached strings of fire.

13. Agustina de Aragón

 

Agustina de Aragón ('Agustina, maid of Aragon', also known as "the Spanish Joan of Arc") was a famous Spanish heroinewho defended Spain during the Spanish War of

Independence, first as a civilian and later as a professional officer in the Spanish Army. She has been the subject of much folklore, mythology, and artwork, including sketches by Goya. Her most famous feat was at the bloody sieges of Saragossa where, at the moment the Spanish troops abandoned their posts not to fall to nearby French bayonets, she ran forward, loaded a cannon, and lit the fuse, shredding a wave of attackers at point blank range. The sight of a lone woman bravely manning the cannons inspired the fleeing Spanish troops and other volunteers to return and assist her.

14. Cleopatra

 

Cleopatra VII Philopator , known to history simply as Cleopatra, was the last active pharaoh of Ptolemaic Egypt, shortly survived as pharaoh by her son Caesarion. She was a warrior of a different sort  . To be sure, she won wars, but not for her the battlefield: her soldiers did the work. She preferred to conquer men in other ways. As Shakespeare put it:

The barge she sat in, like a burnish’d throne,
Burned on the water: the poop was beaten gold;
Purple the sails, and so perfumed that
The winds were lovesick with them; the oars were silver,
Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made
The water which they beat to follow faster,
As amorous of their strokes.

 

15. Maria Quitéria

 

Maria Quitéria de Jesus was born on June 27, 1792, in Licurizeiro, in the parish of São José das Itaporocas (now located in Feira de Santana), Bahia. She was the eldest daughter of farmer Gonçalo Alves de Almeida and Quitéria Maria de Jesus. she was a Brazilian Lieutenant and national heroine. She served in the Brazilian war of independence in 1822–23 dressed as a man. She was promoted to cadet and Lieutenant and decorated with the Imperial order. She has been called "Brazilian Joan of Arc".  Dressed as a man, enlisted in the forces fighting for Brazilian Independence. Once discovered, she was promoted to cadet and afterwards alferez. Her courage was recognized by the Emperor Pedro I.