Incredible Heroines: 40 Amazing Women You Should Know

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1Miraculous Survival and Pregnancy

Miraculous Survival and Pregnancy

In 2005, a woman named Shayna Richardson survived a chute malfunction while falling thousands of feet and face-planting into a parking lot. Not only did she successfully recover, but in the emergency room, she discovered she was two weeks pregnant. The baby was not affected in any way by the accident.


2. After enduring two severe car accidents, Michelle Philpots completely lost her ability to create new memories, causing her to wake up every day thinking it's 1994.


3. A mother named Elisabeth Anderson-Sierra suffers from hyperlactation syndrome, which leads to an overproduction of breast milk. Instead of disposing of the excess milk, she decided to donate it. She spends 4-5 hours each day pumping milk, and in two years, she has donated 609 gallons of breast milk, with most going to feed premature babies.


4. Ginggaew Lorsoungnern is a Thai woman who survived her execution by gunfire in 1979 because she had situs inversus, a condition where all of the body's organs are reversed. She woke up on the way to the morgue. So then she was once again placed before gunfire, and the second volley succeeded.


5. In 1977, Shakuntala Devi, also known as the human computer, calculated the 23rd root of a 201-digit number in just 50 seconds. The UNIVAC 1101 computer at the US Bureau of Standards verified the response (546,372,891), which required a special program to carry out such a sizable calculation.


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6Nazi-Accent Mystery

Nazi-Accent Mystery

In 1941, a 30-year-old woman in Nazi-occupied Norway was struck by shrapnel and developed a strong German accent, leading to the town shunning her. This was the first recorded case of Foreign Accent Syndrome.


7. A woman from Sydney named Joy Milne has the ability to smell Parkinson's disease. In a study, she accurately identified 11 out of 12 patients with Parkinson's, and less than a year later, the final patient was also diagnosed, making her record 12 out of 12.


8. A German woman named Thea Alba earned the nickname "The Woman With Ten Brains" because she could write with all ten fingers simultaneously.


9. Wilma Rudolph suffered from polio and used a brace to walk until she was 12. At the age of 16, she won an Olympic bronze medal as part of the 400-meter relay team. By the age of 20, she had become "The Fastest Woman in History," winning three Olympic gold medals.


10. Maureen Wilton, a 13-year-old Canadian girl, set a new world record for the fastest female marathon in 1967 by more than four minutes. While running, she beamed and exclaimed, "Gee, this is great!" Two minutes after finishing the race, a doctor declared that her heart rate had already returned to normal.


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11Phantom Limb Sensation

Phantom Limb Sensation

A woman was born with three fingers on her right hand. After a tragic accident, she lost her right hand and later developed a phantom limb with five fingers, suggesting that her brain "knew" what a hand was supposed to feel like.


12. A woman named Michelle Thompson suffered from Permanent Sexual Arousal Syndrome (PSAS) and experienced more than 300 orgasms a day.


13. The renowned female pirates Mary Read and Anne Bonny discovered each other's true genders (as they had been disguising themselves as men) when Bonny expressed her attraction to Read, leading Read to also reveal her true identity as a woman.


14. In 1724, a Scottish woman named Maggie Dickson was sentenced to execution by hanging. Miraculously, she survived the hanging and emerged from her coffin as it was being transported. The courts ruled that since the punishment had been carried out, she was a free woman. She became known as 'Half-Hangit Maggie.'


15. A woman named Jean Hilliard survived being frozen for six hours. When she was transported to the hospital, doctors found her skin too rigid to pierce with a hypodermic needle, and her body temperature was too low to register on a thermometer.


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16Secret Kindness Group

Secret Kindness Group

A group of women called "The 9 Nanas" kept a secret for decades that not even their husbands knew about. For 30 years, they met at 4 a.m. and anonymously paid bills and purchased clothes for people in need. Each care package included a homemade pound cake and a note that read, "Somebody loves you."


17. Juliane Koepcke survived a plane explosion and a two-mile fall into a jungle on Christmas Eve. She sustained herself on candy and traveled for ten days with parasites in her wounds.


18. In 1887, America's first female mayor was elected. A group of men nominated her as a joke intended to humiliate women, but she ended up winning over 60% of the vote.


19. Ewa Wi?nierska, a German paraglider, was caught by surprise in a thunderstorm and was sucked up by a cumulonimbus cloud to an altitude of 10,000 meters (33,000 feet). She survived temperatures of -50°C and extreme oxygen deprivation at a height higher than Mount Everest.


20. In 1518, in the small French town of Strasbourg, a young woman named Frau Troffea began dancing uncontrollably in the street. Her dancing continued for days, and by the third day, her shoes were soaked with blood. She attracted over 30 people to join her, which catalyzed the Dancing Plague of 1518.


21Defiant Pirate Queen

Defiant Pirate Queen

Queen Teuta of Illyria was a formidable warrior queen who commanded a fleet of fierce pirates and led armies and navies to conquer cities and islands along the Adriatic coast. She boldly challenged the authority of the Roman Republic by declaring piracy a legitimate business and even resorted to killing their diplomatic envoys as a display of her power.


22. Sonora Carver, one of the first female horse divers, lost her vision due to retinal detachment while diving with her horse, Red Lips, during an Atlantic City show in 1931. Despite her permanent injury, she continued horse diving for another 11 years.


23. A female doctor from Brazil, fed up with burglars trespassing onto her property and stealing her belongings, placed dozens of HIV-infected syringes on top of her metal fence along with a warning board stating, "Wall with HIV-positive blood. No trespassing."


24. Jackie Mitchell, a 17-year-old female pitcher, accomplished the remarkable feat of striking out both Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig in a single exhibition game. Her contract was subsequently voided.


25. Balkan sworn virgins were women who took a vow of celibacy in certain Balkan nations, enabling them to live as men. They were allowed to wear male clothing, inherit property, and become the head of a household. Women took this oath to escape arranged marriages and the obligation to bear children.

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