Showing results for "Was" in Women

Learn how Lady Diana Spencer became the People's Princess as she takes her place in the ranks of the Who Was? series. A shy twenty-year-old girl stepped out of a horse-drawn coach and into the world spotlight, capturing the imagination of millions as a real life fairytale princess. Although the...

Amelia Earhart was a woman of many "firsts." In 1932, she became the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. In 1935, she also became the first woman to fly across the Pacific. From her early years to her mysterious 1937 disappearance while attempting a flight around the world...

From the palaces of Austria to the mirrored halls of Versailles, Marie Antoinette led a charmed life. She was born into royalty in 1755 and married the future king of France at age 15. By 21 she ascended to the throne and enjoyed a lavish lifestyle of masquerade balls, sky-high wigs, and...

Her reign of 63 years and seven months is known as the Victorian Era, a period of industrial, cultural, scientific, and political change that was marked by a great expansion of the British Empire. But Victoria was raised under close supervision and near isolation until she became Queen of the...

Discover why Selena, the Queen of Tejano music, became one of the most celebrated Mexican-American entertainers of the twentieth century! As a young girl, Selena Quintanilla sang in a band called Selena y Los Dinos with her brother and sister. The family performed at fairs, weddings...

How did a little girl who loved horses become the longest reigning monarch in England? Find out in this addition to the #1 New York Times best-selling Who Was? series! In 1936, the life of ten-year-old Princess Elizabeth of York changed forever. Although she was a member of the British Royal...

Learn all about how a young Black girl who loved numbers grew into a brilliant mathematician who helped land the first person on the moon in this inspiring addition to the Who Was? series. From a very young age, Katherine Johnson counted everything—the number of dirty dishes she'd washed, the...

Joan of Arc was born in a small French village during the worst period of the Hundred Years' War. For generations, France had been besieged by the British. At age 11, Joan began to see religious visions telling her to join forces with the King of France. By the time she was a teenager, she was...

Our bestselling series is fit for a queen! The life of Queen Elizabeth I was dramatic and dangerous: cast out of her father's court at the age of three and imprisoned at nineteen, Elizabeth was crowned queen in 1558, when she was only twenty-five. A tough, intelligent woman who spoke five...

Discover how a little girl raised on a dairy farm grew up to become the first woman ever to have an exhibition of their entire life’s work at the Museum of Modern Art in this addition to the #1 New York Times bestselling Who Was series. Georgia O'Keeffe is famously known for her colorful...

There is only one QUEEN OF SOUL! Discover why Aretha Franklin garners so much R-E-S-P-E-C-T. Aretha Franklin was a musical and cultural icon whose legacy spanned six decades! Born in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1942, Aretha got her start singing in front of her father's Baptist congregation and found...

The story of how a girl born into slavery became an early leader in the civil rights movement and the most famous Black female journalist in nineteenth-century America. Born into slavery in 1862, Ida Bell Wells was freed as a result of the Emancipation Proclamation in 1865. Yet she could see how...

In her amazing diary, Anne Frank revealed the challenges and dreams common for any young girl. But Hitler brought her childhood to an end and forced her and her family into hiding. Who Was Anne Frank? looks closely at Anne’s life before the secret annex, what life was like in hiding, and the...

Born in Warsaw, Poland, on November 7, 1867, Marie Curie was forbidden to attend the male-only University of Warsaw, so she enrolled at the Sorbonne in Paris to study physics and mathematics. There she met a professor named Pierre Curie, and the two soon married, forming one of the most famous...

Born a slave in Maryland, Harriet Tubman knew first-hand what it meant to be someone's property; she was whipped by owners and almost killed by an overseer. It was from other field hands that she first heard about the Underground Railroad which she travelled by herself north to Philadelphia...

Learn all about the truly epic life of one of the most famous women rulers in history! Cleopatra's legacy as a trailblazing leader and political strategist dazzles in this addition to the #1 New York Times bestselling series. Cleopatra was born into a time when power struggles within her own...

Read all about about the first Black woman to be elected to Congress in this empowering addition to the Who Was? series. Shirley Chisholm showed interest in politics early on, majoring in sociology at Brooklyn College in New York City. During this time she was awarded for her debate skills...

Born the eighth of seventeen children in Philadelphia, Betsy Ross lived in a time when the American colonies were yearning for independence from British rule. Ross worked as a seamstress and was eager to contribute to the cause, making tents and repairing uniforms when the colonies declared war...

Learn how a Prussian princess grew up to be Russia's longest-ruling female leader! Born in 1729, Princess Sophie of Anhalt-Zerbs was never supposed to come to power. But at age sixteen, she married the heir to the Russian throne. By 1762, Sophie, known now as Catherine, overthrew her immature...

Stunning poetry introduce a new generation to the beloved literary icon Toni Morrison, by New York Times bestselling author Andrea Davis Pinkney and Caldecott Honor winner Daniel Minter. From imaginative child to visionary storyteller, Toni Morrison was a fiercely inspiring writer that helped...