Women's History Quiz: 12 Trailblazers Who Changed the World

The English writer argued that women appeared less capable than men only because they were denied a real education, and that society would benefit if women were taught to reason. The book is regarded as one of the founding texts of feminist philosophy. Her daughter, Mary Shelley, later wrote Frankenstein.

Ada Lovelace translated an Italian article about Charles Babbage's proposed Analytical Engine and added notes that ended up roughly three times longer than the original. One note set out a step-by-step method for the machine to calculate Bernoulli numbers. She also predicted that such machines might one day handle music and symbols, not just numbers. The programming language Ada is named in her honor.

Organized by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott and others in July 1848, the convention produced the Declaration of Sentiments, which was modeled on the Declaration of Independence. Its call for women's voting rights was the most debated resolution. The site is now preserved as Women's Rights National Historical Park.

After years of petitions led by Kate Sheppard and the suffrage movement, New Zealand became the first self-governing country where all adult women could vote in parliamentary elections. Māori women were included. Women there could not stand as candidates for Parliament until 1919. Kate Sheppard appears on New Zealand's ten-dollar note.

After escaping slavery herself, Harriet Tubman returned to Maryland many times to guide others to freedom. During the Civil War she served the Union Army as a scout and spy, and in June 1863 she helped guide a raid along South Carolina's Combahee River that freed more than 700 enslaved people. She is widely recognized as the first woman to lead an armed assault in that war.

Marie Curie shared the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics with Pierre Curie and Henri Becquerel for work on radioactivity, becoming the first woman to win a Nobel Prize. In 1911 she won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry alone for discovering polonium and radium. She remains the only person honored with Nobel Prizes in two different scientific fields.

Tennessee's vote in August 1920 provided the final ratification needed, and the amendment was certified on August 26, 1920. It barred the federal government and the states from denying citizens the vote on the basis of sex. In practice, many women of color, including Black women in the South and many Native American women, continued to face barriers to voting for decades, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was a major turning point.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks refused a driver's order to give up her seat. Her arrest launched the Montgomery Bus Boycott, which lasted 381 days and brought a young Martin Luther King Jr. to national attention. It ended after the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a ruling that bus segregation was unconstitutional.

She led Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) after her party won the 1960 election, becoming the first woman in the modern world to serve as a head of government. She held the post three times. Indira Gandhi (India) followed in 1966 and Golda Meir (Israel) in 1969.

The Soviet cosmonaut launched aboard Vostok 6 on June 16, 1963, and orbited Earth 48 times in nearly three days. Before joining the space program, she was a textile factory worker and an amateur parachutist. Sally Ride became the first American woman in space twenty years later, in 1983.

Corazon "Cory" Aquino took office after the peaceful People Power Revolution, also known as the EDSA Revolution, ended the rule of Ferdinand Marcos. She is often cited as the first woman to serve as president of an Asian country. Her government oversaw the adoption of the 1987 Philippine Constitution.

Malala Yousafzai was 17 when she shared the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize with India's Kailash Satyarthi for their struggle for children's right to education. Two years earlier, she survived being shot for speaking out in support of girls attending school in Pakistan's Swat Valley.

Yes. The questions are written for teens and adults, and teachers can use the quiz as a warm-up or review activity. The answer key gives each question a short, classroom-friendly explanation.

Each fact was compared with authoritative references, including the U.S. National Archives, the National Park Service, the official Nobel Prize website, New Zealand's government history site and the United Nations. Where history is more nuanced, such as who could actually vote after 1920, the explanation says so.

Marie Curie, who shared the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics. She won again in 1911, this time in Chemistry.

In the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia, Women's History Month is observed in March, the same month as International Women's Day on March 8. Some countries, such as Canada, observe it in October.

Absolutely. Press "Replay the quiz" on the results card to reset every exhibit and try again.