1Corazon Aquino
Corazon Aquino was the wife of Benigno Aquino Jr., a staunch political opponent against the dictator of the Philippines. Upon the assassination of her husband by the dictator, she ran for president against him, winning and restoring democracy to the Philippines.
2Henriette Caillaux
In 1914, the wife of the French Prime Minister, Henriette Caillaux, assassinated a newspaper editor to prevent him from leaking that she and her husband had been dating while still married to their previous spouses. She was acquitted for ‘uncontrollable female emotions.’
3Jane Hawking
Stephen Hawking's wife Jane Hawking was given the option to take him off of life support after he was placed in a medically induced coma in 1985. She refused, and upon recovering Stephen Hawking finished writing ‘A Brief History of Time.’
4Sara Northrup Hollister
Sara Northrup Hollister, the wife of L. Ron Hubbard consulted doctors who recommended he "be committed to a private sanatorium for psychiatric observation and treatment of a mental ailment known as paranoid schizophrenia." Thereafter, Hubbard criticized psychiatry as a "barbaric and corrupt profession."
5Martha Matthews
Willie Nelson's ex-wife Martha Matthews once sewed him up in a sheet and beat him with a broomstick. He commented: “She was a very classy, ingenious, brilliant lady, and I was a problem at times.”
6Rita Marley
Bob Marley’s wife Rita Marley was shot in the head during his attempted assassination. However, she had dreadlocks so thick, they saved her life.
7Eliza Jumel
America’s founding father Aaron Burr’s 2nd wife Eliza Jumel was represented in their divorce trial by Alexander Hamilton Jr., the son of the man Burr shot and killed 30 years before.
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8Kato Svanidze
When Joseph Stalin's first wife Kato Svanidze died, he was so overcome with grief that he threw himself into her grave during the funeral. Later, secret policemen arrived at the funeral, looking for Stalin (at the time a wanted fugitive) and he was forced to flee the service early by jumping the graveyard’s fence.
9Chen Jieru
Chinese President Chiang Kai-shek’s wife Chen Jieru wrote a memoir that was suppressed by Chiang from publication until 1993. On their wedding night, Chiang infected Chen with syphilis, leaving her infertile. He later sent her to “study” in the US but never allowed her to return to China.
10Rachel Jackson
Andrew Jackson’s wife Rachel Jackson was attacked as an adulteress and she died during the 1828 Presidential election after falling into a deep depression. At her funeral, Jackson said, “May God Almighty forgive her murderers. I never can.”
