Driven By Her: Unsung Heroines
Have you ever heard of a woman named Rosalind Franklin?...probably not, but you can draw a line from today\u2019s covid vaccines all the way back to her in the 1950s...she conducted some serious research into the makeup of rna molecules...\nRosalind also did some groundbreaking research into the structure of DNA molecules...without her, Jim Watson and Francis Crick may not have discovered how DNA was constructed...they\u2019d go on to win the Nobel prize in 1962...was Rosalind ever given the credit she deserved?...no...\nWhat about grace hopper?...ring any bells?...back in the 1940s, lieutenant Grace Hopper invented some computer programming techniques used by the army during World War II\u2026this was the basis of Cobol, the compute language still used by business, finance, and administrative software today...\nLet\u2019s try Susan Kare...no?...she\u2019s the one who came up with the trash can icon and the command key on mac computers...she was integral to making the mac operating system as user-friendly as possible...\nOkay, here\u2019s a name you may know: Hedy Lamar...famous actress from old Hollywood in the 30s and 40s and one-time date of Howard Hughes, right?...but she also worked with a guy named George Antheil to come up with a radio \u201cfrequency hopping\u201d technology that made today\u2019s Wi-Fi, cellular phones, Bluetooth, and gps communications possible...in fact, some call Hedy Lamar \u201cthe mother of Wi-Fi\u201d...but does she get the appropriate credit for that?...nope...\nThose are just a few unsung heroines of technology...their work changed the world...and there are so many more in other fields, too...back in the late 1800s, Nellie Bly became the first investigative female journalist...effa Manley was the first woman to own a sports team...that was back in the 1930s...Beulah Henry was nicknamed \u201cLady Edison\u201d because she was such a prolific inventor...\nAnd while we all know about Joan of Arc, what about Matilda of Tuscany?...she had a 40-year military career who successfully led troops against the Holy Roman Emperor again and again almost a thousand years ago...these are just a few unsung heroines from history...\nThere are similar stories from the world of music: women who changed so much but have been given so little credit...let\u2019s see if we can\u2019t do a little bit to fix that...\nLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices