Photo of Mabel Capper and Patricia Woodlock advertising a meeting, Manchester, Lancashire, July 1908

Women's history

A maid polishes a silver dish. Female domestic servants were highly vulnerable to sexual exploitation, but in Reformation France they found some ways to fight back. (Photo by: Christophel Fine Art/UIG via Getty Images)

The women who wouldn’t be silenced in Reformation France. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Petra Kelly. “Through sheer force of will, Petra Kelly put green politics on the map. Her success in Germany in the 1980s inspired green parties across the world to shake things up,” says Caroline Lucas. (Photo by Schulze-Vorberg/ullstein bild via Getty Images)

My history hero: Caroline Lucas chooses Petra Kelly (1947–92). This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Sir Godfrey Kneller's portrait of Anne Stuart. Following the 1707 Acts of Union, she would be queen of Great Britain and Ireland. (Photo by Getty Images)

"A charming, popular monarch": Tracy Borman on Queen Anne. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

French writer Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette and husband Willy, photographed c1902. (Photo by Apic/Getty Images)

Who was the real Colette?

Max Adams. (Photo by Kona Macphee/Royal Literary Fund)

Remarkable women through history. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

5 women who challenged the Westminster boys' club in the 18th century. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Queen Anne, based on a work by Sir Godfrey Kneller, c1702–10. Anne's reign saw women take centre stage in fierce political debates. (Photo by Bridgeman/National Trust Photographic Library)

Queen Anne's feuding favourites. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Hardwick Hall in Derbyshire, England. (Photo by Getty Images)

The house that Bess built: the secrets of Hardwick Hall. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Elizabeth I and Mary, Queen of Scots

Deadly rivals: Elizabeth I and Mary, Queen of Scots. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

c1935: Beatrice Shilling sits astride her Norton motorcycle. (Photo by Fox Photos/Getty Images)

5 "bloody brilliant" 20th-century women. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Helen Duncan, a 20th-century medium and spiritualist, allegedly summoned spirits draped in ‘ectoplasm’ – organic matter emitted from her body. In the 1930s she was denounced as a fraud, and in 1944 prosecuted under the 1735 Witchcra Act, which forbade conjuring spirits. (Photo courtesy of Ashmolean Museum/University of London)

Conjuring up the dead: Helen Duncan and her ectoplasm spirits. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

The ‘Pit Brow Lasses’ of 19th-century coal mines. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

8 unconventional royal wedding dresses in history. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Queen Victoria by Lucy Worsley. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Historians Joanne Paul, Olivette Otele and June Purvis dissect the results of our recent poll: 100 women who changed the world.

Video: 100 women who changed the world. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A fourth to fifth-century AD Roman mosaic shows a woman spinning. The household was considered a woman's natural environment; the political arena certainly was not. (Photo by DeAgostini/Getty Images)

6 women who changed the course of Roman history

Top ( l-r) Agrippina the Elder, Julia, and Livia. Bottom (l-r) Messalina and Agrippina the Younger

The women who built the Roman Empire. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

100 women who changed the world

100 women who changed the world. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Female spies of the Civil War era. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

"Queen Victoria was more than just a token ruler of India. Passionately interested in its people and culture, she intervened frequently in Indian politics," says Miles Taylor. (Photo by Time Life Pictures/Mansell/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images)

The LibraryQueen Victoria’s Indians. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Composite image of famous women: Cleopatra, Marie Curie, Mary Wollstonecraft, Madame CJ Walker, Jane Austen, Emmeline Pankhurst, Ethel Smyth, the Virgin Mary, Rosa Parks, Frida Kahlo, Diana, Princess of Wales, Amelia Earhart.

100 women who changed the world

100 Women Who Changed the World results: what the experts say. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Portrait of Jane Seymour, third wife of Henry VIII, 1536. (Photo by Imagno/Getty Images)

Henry VIII's six wives in a different light. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

While young ladies may have been daydreaming of handsome film stars such as Cary Grant, pictured here kissing the cheek of Ingrid Bergman in a publicity still for the 1946 film ‘Notorious’, agony aunts were keen to bring them back down to earth. (Photo by John Springer Collection/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images)

How to be a man: tips from 1930s agony aunts. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Restoring women’s voices. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

In this painting from c1650, a witch wields a broomstick as demons and 'familiars' (helpers of witches) congregate before her. (Photo by Rischgitz/Getty Images)

History quiz – witchcraft and superstition. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

English philanthropist Angela Burdett-Coutts. (Photo by Hulton-Deutsch/Hulton-Deutsch Collection/Corbis via Getty Images)

My history hero: Angela Burdett-Coutts. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Vera Brittain, who worked as a nurse during the First World War and went on to become one of the leading writers of the interwar years. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Love, loss and distorted memories. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A female computer programmer demonstrates a new computer in the 1960s.

The changing role of women in British computing. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Jane Seymour: Henry VIII’s favourite queen. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.