50 Underrated Women You Never Learned About In History Class

25. Queen Zenobia of Palmyra. She became regent for her son upon her husband’s death (already uncommon for the time) and managed to use that power to conquer freaking Egypt, allow for social and religious freedoms, and fostered cultural and artistic endeavors.

Her downfall was fighting against – and losing to – the Roman empire, but her rule was one of the most prosperous and peaceful for Syria.

26. Fei Fei Li. Her work with AI is pretty amazing. You should watch her Ted talk. She gave the same talk at VMworld a couple years ago and I was blown away.

27. Henrietta Lacks. No one knows who she is but her cells are still being used in labs all over to this day. All without her consent or knowledge.

28. Ada Lovelace. She was one of first people to see the potential of computing machines back in the mid-1800s and is regarded as one of the first programmers and first female coder.