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Leaders and politicians: Carol Moseley Braun - In 1992, she was the first African-American woman elected to the US Senate. During her time in the Senate, she focused on civil rights, women's rights, educational reforms, gun laws, and served on the Senate Finance Committee.

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Leaders and politicians: Condoleezza Rice - Appointed in 2004 by President George W. Bush, Rice took office in January 2005, becoming the first African-American woman to serve as Secretary of State. She replaced Colin Powell, who was the first African-American to serve in that position.

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Leaders and politicians: Hillary Clinton - The former U.S. Senator, Secretary of State, and First Lady was nominated as the Democratic nominee on July 26, 2016, becoming the first woman from a major party to run.

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Athletes: Althea Gibson - In 1950, Gibson became the first African American to play at the US National Championships, and went on to break the same color barrier at Wimbledon  the following year.

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Athletes: Billie Jean King - Following in Gibson’s footsteps, King also broke barriers in tennis by pushing for equal prize money for women and men, which she achieved at the 1973 US Open.

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Athletes: Aly Raisman -

The gymnast and two-time Olympian made history by standing up to sexual abuse in the sport by testifying against former USA Gymnastics national team doctor Larry Nassar. She launched a campaign called Flip The Switch, aimed at teaching adults how to identify sexual abuse among youth athletes.

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Athletes: Serena Williams - Considered by many as one of the best athletes in sports history, Williams’ accomplishments in tennis are too many to list. She currently holds the status of being the only tennis player in history (of any gender) to have won at least six singles titles in three of the four Grand Slam tournaments. She is also the only player in history to have won two Grand Slams seven times each (seven Wimbledon titles and seven Australian Open titles).

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Artists: Lee Krasner -

As one of the few women to have had a retrospective show at the Museum of Modern Art, Krasner was a versatile artist whose ideas helped devise the all-over technique that greatly influenced Jackson Pollock's revolutionary drip paintings.

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Artists: Georgia O'Keeffe -

One of the leading figures in American Modernism, O’Keeffe helped establish a new and significant space for women in art, a field that continues to be dominated by men.

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Artists: Cindy Sherman - The photographer deconstructed and reinvented portraiture, a genre generally seen as dead when she arrived on the scene. By doing so, Sherman influenced not only photographers but also painters and performance and video artists.

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Activists, revolutionaries, and humanitarians: Helen Keller - The writer, humanitarian, and social activist became blind and deaf following a near-fatal illness as an infant. Despite her disability, she refused to live in isolation, and went on to change the lives of people with disabilities through her activism.

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Activists, revolutionaries, and humanitarians: Gloria Steinem - The journalist and social political activist became a fervent leader and spokeswoman for the American feminist movement in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In 2005, she, along with actress Jane Fonda and author Robin Morgan, co-founded the Women's Media Center.

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Activists, revolutionaries, and humanitarians: Tarana Burke - The American civil rights activist is known for being the first to use the phrase "Me Too" back in 2006. Her slogan was adopted overnight in 2017 by women sharing their experiences of rape and sexual assault, which has evolved into a full-blown movement.

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Aviation and space: Amelia Earhart - The aviator became a celebrity after completing her famous trip across the ocean in 1932, transforming her into the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic.

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Aviation and space: Sally Ride - The physicist and astronaut opened all sorts of doors for women scientists after becoming the first American woman in space in 1983.

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Business leaders: Indra Nooyi - The Indian-American businesswoman is the former CEO of PepsiCo. She consistently ranks among the World's 100 Most Powerful Women, reaching the 13th position on the list of Forbes World's 100 most powerful women in 2014, and the second most powerful woman on the Fortune list between 2015 and 20217.

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Business leaders: Meg Whitman - The business executive who served as the CEO to Hewlett Packard Enterprise until resigning in February 2018, is best known for taking eBay from US$5.7 million to $8 billion in sales during her tenure as the company’s CEO between 1998 and 2008.

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Entertainers: Aretha Franklin - The Queen of Soul was the first woman ever to be inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and remains one of the best-selling musical artists of all time, having sold over 75 million records worldwide.

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Entertainers: Oprah Winfrey - Oprah consistently ranks as the most powerful and influential woman in the world, mainly because of her ability to reach massive amounts of people. Many believe she played a crucial role in Barack Obama’s successful presidential campaign in 2008, as his numbers seemingly soared after she publicly endorsed him.

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Heroines and adventurers: Ann Bancroft -

The Minnesota native was the first woman to successfully finish a series of arduous expeditions to the Arctic and Antarctic in the 1980s and 1990s, including crossing both polar ice caps to reach the North and South Poles, and skiing across Greenland.

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Scientists and researchers: Margaret Mead - The cultural anthropologist popularized anthropology in modern American and Western culture, and is best known for her theory that culture rather than heredity shapes personality.

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Scientists and researchers: Lisa Randall - This brilliant physicist specializes in particle physics and cosmology, and became the most cited theoretical physicist of the previous five years in 2004.

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Scientists and researchers: Rachel Carson -

The work of this early marine biologist, author, and conservationist greatly helped advance the global environmental movement.

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Writers: Maya Angelou - The civil rights activist's memoir, 'I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,' became the first nonfiction best-seller by an African-American woman. Her broad career included being Hollywood's first female black director and serving on two presidential committees, Gerald Ford's in 1975 and Jimmy Carter's in 1977.

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Writers: Toni Morrison - The novelist was the recipient of both the Nobel and Pulitzer Prizes for her work exploring the African-American experience. In 2012, President Barack Obama presented her with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

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Writers: Harper Lee -

Despite having written only two books in her life, the Pulitzer Prize winner became a national treasure upon the release of ‘To Kill a Mockingbird,’ which has been cemented as one of the greatest modern American classics of all time.

See also: The best female authors of all time

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