8 Women Who Changed the World

Women have shaped history, but there are some names you may be unfamiliar with. Read on to discover eight incredible stories of tenacity and talent of years gone by

-  MEGHAN MCCORMACK

Rosalind Franklin

Franklin attended Cambridge University in the late 1930s and 40s, where she studied chemistry, an education that would pave the way to her making one of the most crucial discoveries of our time about our DNA. After her studies, Franklin managed to obtain images of DNA using X-ray crystallography at King's College London. Her work and images allowed James Watson and Francis Crick to go on to create their double helix DNA model. Franklin's work was vital to this discovery - however she is often forgotten by the history books.

Martha Gellhorn

Look up the word fearless, and you'll find Martha Gellhorn listed beneath. Born in St Louis in 1908, Gellhorn moved to Paris aged 21 to write novels. However she found her voice as a journalist during the Depression, when she covered the real lives of textile workers.

From there, she went on to Spain to become one of the most illustrious, eye-witness war reporters ever, covering the Civil War in 1937.

During the Second World War, Gellhorn famously reported as a witness to D-Day from a hospital ship where she had wangled her way on board, recording what it was really like from the beaches in a nurse's uniform.

Later in life and two marriages on (one of which was to Ernest Hemingway), Gellhorn moved to London in 1970 where life became more solitary. She volunteered at Kew Gardens and travelled, before a new generation of reporters became inspired by her work. Affectionately referred to by Gellhorn as her 'young chaps', many journalists looked up to her steely reporting style and she often imparted her words of wisdom to them.

The Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism has been awarded each year since 1999 to those exposing establishment propaganda, cementing her place in the history books and celebrating the role she played in reporting on the world from the ground.

Beulah Louise Henry