Nobel Prize-winning scientist Marie Curie tops ‘women who changed the world’ list

Scientist Marie Curie is seen as the woman who has had the most significant impact on world history, according to a new poll conducted by the BBC.

The Polish-born French physicist and chemist, who’s renowned for discovering polonium and radium with her husband, took the crown in the poll, surpassing the likes of monarchs, activists and authors. Curie also received recognition for her work in radioactivity and was the first person to be awarded two Nobel Prizes ever.

Hot on the heels of Curie’s top ranking came activists like Rosa Parks and Emmeline Pankhurst, who came in second and third respectively; and professional pioneers Ada Lovelace, Rosalind Franklin and Marie Stopes, who were also featured in the top 10.

The list by the BBC History Magazine was based on a shortlist that readers voted on. The magazine asked professionals from 10 separate fields of human endeavour to each select and nominate 10 women they saw as having had the greatest impact on world history; which helped craft the shortlist for voters.

According to Immediate Media, BBC History Magazine is Britain’s “biggest-selling history brand” with magazine readership reaching up to 300,000 and print circulation coming in around 95,000.

The president of Britain’s largest learned society, Patricia Fara, who nominated Marie Curie, describes the two-time Nobel Prize-winning scientist as one who had the odds “always stacked against her.”

“In Poland (Curie’s) patriotic family suffered under a Russian regime. In France she was regarded with suspicion as a foreigner — and of course, wherever she went, she was discriminated against as a woman,” said Fara, president of the British Society for the History of Science, in a statement.

Here are the top 20 pioneers ranked from the BBC History Magazine’s “100 Women who changed the world” poll:

1. Marie Curie
2. Rosa Parks
3. Emmeline Pankhurst
4. Ada Lovelace
5. Rosalind Franklin
6. Margaret Thatcher
7. Angela Burdett-Coutts
8. Mary Wollstonecraft
9. Florence Nightingale
10. Marie Stopes
11. Eleanor of Aquitaine
12. The Virgin Mary
13. Jane Austen
14. Boudicca
15. Diana, Princess of Wales
16. Amelia Earhart
17. Queen Victoria
18. Josephine Butler
19. Mary Seacole
20. Mother Teresa

For the full list of pioneers featured in the “100 Women Who Changed the World” poll, read the full analysis by BBC History Magazine.

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