Allison Lassieur - 25 Women Who Dared to Go

Throughout history, people have traveled the globe seeking adventure and places to explore. During the 20th century, Charles Lindbergh, Edmund Hillary, and Neil Armstrong became household names around the world. Not as famous, but just as fearless, are the female explorers and adventurers. Gertrude Bell, Junko Tabei, Bessie Coleman, and Harriet Boyd Hawes are just a few of the women who climbed, flew, rode, and paved the way right alongside their male counterparts.

From the murky depths of the ocean to the dark void of outer space, women explorers have conquered the world. They dared to dream, to succeed, to go where people had never been before.

I suggest to everyone: Look in the mirror. Ask yourself: Who are you? What are your talents? Use them, and do what you love.

Sylvia Earle

Sylvia Earle dived 65 feet (20 meters) underwater near Marouba, Australia, to study a Port Jackson shark.

These courageous female spies and soldiers dealt in deadly secretsand so much more! Some organized supplies and ammunition for armies or ran covert communication networks. Others broke enemy codes or went deep undercover. But all of these women knew they could die as a result of what they did.

Agnes Meyer Driscoll, 1914

Agnes Meyer Driscoll was always interested in science and technology. She graduated from Ohio State University when she was 22, majoring in mathematics, music, physics, and foreign languages. After she graduated, Driscoll became a teacher.

In 1918, a year after the U.S. began fighting in World War I (19141918), Driscoll enlisted in the U.S. Navy. The Navy recruited her as chief yeoman, the highest possible rank. She was assigned to the Navys Code and Signal Section. She was great at breaking codes, but even better at figuring out how code machines worked. She had only been at her job a few days when she began to help develop a code machine for the Navy.

After the war Driscoll stayed on as a code breaker. During the 1920s and 1930s, the U.S. and Japanese militaries regularly stole secrets from each other. Driscoll was able to crack the toughest Japanese Navy codes. By the time World War II (19391945) began, Driscoll was known as Madam X. She was one of the Navys top Although few people know her name today, Agnes Meyer Driscoll is one of the greatest U.S. codebreakers in history.

Nancy Wake, 1951

Nancy Wake, also known as White Mouse, was the most ferocious spy and resistance fighter of World War II. Wake was born in New Zealand in 1912 and was the youngest of six children. She traveled to France and became a journalist in the 1930s, just as the Nazi party rose to power. She was against what the Nazis stood for and racismand vowed to fight them the first chance she got. In 1940, just six months after she married a wealthy Frenchman, the Nazis invaded France and Wake got her chance.

Wake joined the French Resistance and began fighting the Nazis. She used her free status and connections to get food, supplies, and messages to other resistance groups. Then she began smuggling refugees and escaped Allied prisoners out of the country.

It didnt take long for the After this death-defying escape, she fled to England and kept on fighting.

She led her own operation of resistance fighters, which raided a Nazi weapon factory in 1944. She once killed a German sentry with her bare hands to keep him from sounding an alarm. And when the Allies needed a secret force to parachute into France to prepare for D-Day, Wake was part of it.

After the war, Wake received high honors for her wartime bravery, including Great Britains George Medal, the United States Medal of Freedom, and Frances Legion of Honor.

Noor Inayat Khan, 1943

Noor Inayat Khan was born in Russia to a father from India and a mother from the United States. The family moved to Paris, France, when Noor was a child. When the Nazis invaded France in 1939, Noor, her sister, and her mother barely escaped to England.

In 1942 Khan was recruited as a secret agent by a British spy operation, the Special Operations Executive (SOE). The next year the SOE sent Khan and a group of spies into German-occupied France. Their job was to work as wireless operators and send secret messages between France and England. Nazis were able to detect the radio signals created, which made this job very dangerous. So dangerous, in fact, that most operatives in France were caught within six weeks.

Working under the code name Madeleine, Khan and her network of spies sent hundreds of messages before the Gestapo arrested them. Khan managed to escape. Her commanders begged her to leave France but she refused. Instead, Khan single-handedly ran a communication network in Paris for three months.

In 1943 Khan was betrayed by the relative of a fellow spy and was captured by the Gestapo. For 10 months they tortured her for information, but Madeleine never broke. The Gestapo realized Khan wouldnt give up Allied information, and she was sentenced to death. The moment before she was executed by the Gestapo, Khan shouted Libert! as a final act of defiance.

After the war, Khan was recognized for her bravery. She was awarded the George Cross from Great Britain and the Croix de Guerre from France.

Josephine Baker, 1951

Most people knew Josephine Baker as one of the most famous American performers in Europe. But what they didnt know was that this international star had a secret lifeas a spy and informant in France during World War II.

Baker was born into poverty in St. Louis, Missouri. By the time she was 17, she had worked her way onto the Broadway stage as a chorus dancer. In 1925 she traveled to France, wowing audiences with her beauty and charisma. The audiences at her shows were often fully booked, and she soon became one of the highest-paid performers in Europe. For years she enjoyed the life of the rich and famous.

When World War II began in 1939 Baker started working for the Red Cross. One day, a member of the French Resistance approached her with a job offer: to become a spy for France. Baker didnt hesitate. France made me who I am, she said. Parisians gave me their hearts, and I am ready to give them my life.

Her fame became her cover. She mingled with Nazi officers and foreign ambassadors at after-show parties, eavesdropping on their conversations. She smuggled secret messages written in invisible ink on her sheet music. She continued to travel and perform throughout the war. The Nazis never suspected that the beautiful dancer was a dangerous spy.