The Mirabal sisters, Patria, Minerva, and María Teresa, were born in Salcedo in the Cibao region of the Dominican Republic, three out of four daughters of a family of landowners. In 1930, when the dictator Rafael Trujillo became the country’s leader, their parents opposed the new regime and even refused to hang a picture of the tyrant in their home. After earning their primary education at the village’s school, they attended the country’s best boarding school, El Colegio de la Inmaculada, in La Vega. The oldest sister, Patria, left school at 17, married, and had three children. The third sister, Minerva, continued her education and studied law at the University of Santo Domingo, becoming one of the first women to graduate from law school in the country. However, following an incident that occurred a few years earlier, in which Minerva caught the eye of Trujillo at a party and rejected his sexual attempts, her diploma was revoked from her honors as summa cum laude and got disapproved from practicing law. The youngest sister, María Teresa, attended the Liceo de San Francisco de Macorís and later studied mathematics at the University of Santo Domingo. As a student, Minerva became more aware of Trujillo’s atrocities and became involved in the political movement against the totalitarian regime. Soon, her sisters, husbands, and older children followed. The three couples became the leaders in the underground movement to change the regime. It was named The Fourteenth of June resistance movement after the date the activists tried to overthrow the government and were tortured and killed. They distributed pamphlets, gathered materials for weapons, and made makeshift bombs. The sisters became known within the movement as the Las Mariposas – The Butterflies. However, their activity didn’t last long, as they were discovered only a few weeks after its foundations. On January 22nd, 1960, the secret police raided their meeting place at Patria’s house, burned it to the ground, and arrested Minerva, María Teresa, and the three husbands. The two sisters were released after three weeks but were later sent back to prison for several more months. On November 25th, 1960, the secret police ambushed the three sisters and their driver, Rufino de la Cruz, returning from visiting their incarcerated husbands. The four were strangled and beaten to death with clubs; their bodies were put back into their Jeep, which was pushed off the road to make it look like a car accident. Patria was 36, Minerva 34, and María Teresa 25. The Mirabal sisters’ assassinations significantly impacted public opinion and spurred the events that led to Trujillo’s assassination six months later. Following their death, their surviving sister, Dedé, took in and raised her sisters’ six children. She devoted her life to preserving and promoting their legacy, establishing the Mirabal Sisters Foundation and the Mirabal Sisters Museum. The sister became national heroines and a worldwide symbol of feminist resistance and social justice. Read more...

Charlotte (1816-1855), Emily (1818-1848), and Anne (1820-1849) Brontë were born in Thornton, England, the three out of six children of Maria and Patrick Brontë, who was an Anglican clergyman. Shortly after Anne was born, the family moved to Haworth. Only a few months later, their mother died, and their aunt came to take care of them. In 1824, Charlotte, Emily, and their two older sisters, Maria and Elizabeth, were sent to study at the Clergy Daughters’ School at Cowan Bridge. The harsh conditions affected their health, and the following year, both Maria and Elizabeth died of tuberculosis. Charlotte and Emily returned home, where Charlotte, who now became the eldest, took the mother role to her younger siblings. They were homeschooled and earned most of their education from books from their father’s library. Being isolated from other children, the Brontës spent their time in writing and inventing an imaginary Kingdome called Glass Town. Charlotte, who wrote her first poem at 13, gathered her and her siblings’ compositions and published them in a homemade magazine called Branwell’s Blackwood’s Magazine. Over time, Charlotte and her older brother, Branwell (Patrick), created their own world called Angria. While Charlotte went to study at Roe Head school in Mirfield, Emily and Anne invented another world called Gondal. In 1833, at 17, Charlotte returned to Roe Head as a teacher. During this time, she wrote poems to express her loneliness. In 1835, Emily joined her at Roe Head as a student but returned home after a few months. Later, Anne took her place at the school. In 1839, Charlotte and Anne began to work as governesses. That was a traumatic experience for Anne, who later detailed the event in her novel Agnes Grey. In 1842, Charlotte and Emily traveled to Brussels to improve their French, but they had to return early than planned following their aunt’s death. Later, Charlotte returned to Brussels to teach for two more years. Two of her novels – The Professor and Villette – were inspired by her time there. During all this time, the Brontë Sisters continued writing, and in 1846 they self-published a joint collection of their poems under the pseudonyms Currer (Charlotte), Ellis (Emily), and Acton (Anne) Bell. Later that year, they sent to publishers in London a package containing manuscripts by each sister – Charlotte’s The Professor, Emily’s Wuthering Heights, and Anne’s Agnes Grey. Although The Professor was not published, Charlotte sent another manuscript, Jane Eyre. All three sisters published their novels in 1847; while Jane Eyre received immediate success, Anne’s Agnes Grey was surpassed by her sister’s passionate drama. In 1848, at 28, Anne published her second novel, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. At the time, Charlotte worked on her second manuscript, but stopped following the death of her three lasting siblings. First, her older brother Branwell died of chronic bronchitis and marasmus; then Emily died of pulmonary tuberculosis, and the following year, Anne died from pulmonary tuberculosis. Eventually, Charlotte resumed her writings, and in 1849, published her second novel, Shirley, followed by her third, Villette (1853). She then married Arthur Nicholls, her father’s curate, and soon became pregnant. Her health declined, and she died with her unborn child only three weeks before her 39th birthday. Despite the early and tragic deaths of the three Brontë sisters, they published together six novels (Charlotte – 3, Anne – 2, Emily – 1) and hundreds of poems, leaving a significant mark on the Victorian literature world that continues to this day. Their books were adapted into films, TV series, music, dances, operas, and stage productions. Read more...

Sylvia Alice Earle was born in Gibbstown, New Jersey. Her parents were nature lovers and encouraged her interest in the natural world and exploring the nearby woods. At 12, the family moved to Dunedin, Florida, by the waterfront, and she became fascinated by the seagrass beds and salt marshes. In 1952, at 17, after receiving an associate degree from St. Petersburg Jr. College, she went to study Botany at Florida State University and learned to dive with SCUBA gear. She continued her education at Duke University, writing her thesis on algae in the Gulf of Mexico, and received her Doctorate of Phycology (the scientific study of algae) in 1966. In 1965, at 30, Earle began her lifelong research career when accepting a position as Cape Haze Marine Laboratories resident director in Sarasota, Florida. Two years later, she became a research fellow at the Farlow Herbarium of Harvard University and joined the Radcliffe Institute as a research scholar. In one of her research dives in 1968, Earle discovered undersea dunes off the Bahamas coast. In 1970, 35 years old Earle led the first all-female team of aquanauts as part of the Tektite II experiment – an underwater housing and laboratory about 50 feet (15 meters) below the surface of Great Lameshur Bay off the island of St. John in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Throughout the two-week experiment, she documented the impacts of pollution on coral reefs. It was the first of many undersea researches Earle led over her career, which included expeditions to China, the Bahamas, and the Galapagos Islands. She began to work with the National Geographic Society, producing films and books on life in Earth’s oceans, and in 1979, was appointed curator of phycology at the California Academy of Sciences. That year, at 44, Earle set a new world record for untethered diving by descending 1,250 feet (381 meters) into the depths of the Pacific Ocean, wearing a JIM diving suit – a specialized apparatus designed to maintain internal pressure equivalent to 1 standard atmosphere. In 1982, Earle and engineer Graham Hawkes, who later became her third husband, founded Deep Ocean Engineering and Deep Ocean Technology, a company that designs, supports, and operates piloted and robotic subsea systems. Within three years, they built the Deep Rover research submarine that can reach 3000 feet (914 meters) beneath the ocean’s surface. In 1990, Earle left the company to serve as Chief Scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the first woman to serve in this position. During her post, she led numerous expeditions to research the environmental damage caused by Iraq’s demolition of Kuwaiti oil wells during the Persian Gulf War. In 1992, she founded another marine technology company called Deep Ocean Exploration and Research. Over the following decades, Earle continued leading expeditions and setting more records as the first woman chief scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the first woman explorer in residence of the National Geographic Society. In 2009, Earle received a million-dollar prize from TED. It enabled her to found Mission Blue, a non-profit organization advocating for exploring and protecting the ocean and working to establish Hope Spots (marine protected areas) worldwide. The organization’s goal is to achieve 30% ocean protection by 2030, and as of 2020, its created more than 120 Hope Spots. Throughout her 60-year career, Earle has logged over 7,000 hours underwater, published over 150 scientific papers, and led over a hundred expeditions. Read more...

Wangarĩ Muta Maathai was born in the village of Ihithe, Kenya. At 11, she was sent to a boarding school at the Mathari Catholic Mission in Nyeri, where she learned English and converted to Catholicism. At 16, after graduating top of her class, she was granted admission to Loreto High School, a Catholic high school for girls. In 1960, 20 years old Maathai was one of the 300 Kenyans selected to study in the US as part of the Kennedy Airlift and studied biology, chemistry, and German at Mount St. Scholastica College in Atchison, Kansas. After receiving an MSc in biological sciences from the University of Pittsburgh, she worked as a research assistant in the microanatomy section Department of Veterinary Anatomy in the School of Veterinary Medicine at the University College of Nairobi. Later, she moved to Germany to write her doctorate, completing it at the University of Nairobi while serving as an assistant lecturer. In 1971, at 31, Maathai became the first Eastern African woman to receive a Ph.D. from the University of Nairobi. In the early 1970s, Maathai became an active member of various civic organizations. She held positions such as director of the Nairobi branch of the Kenya Red Cross Society and board chair of the Environment Liaison Centre. She also continued her academic career, and in 1976, at 36, she was appointed chair of the Department of Veterinary Anatomy and associate professor the following year, becoming the first woman to serve in these positions. At the time, she began to work with the National Council of Women of Kenya, formulating a strategy to involve women in rural areas in environmental conservation by planting trees. This initiative aimed to address the challenges of deforestation and desertification while providing a sustainable fuel source for communities. In 1977, she founded The Green Belt Movement, which in 1986 led to the founding of the Pan African Green Belt Network. Since its inception, the organization has planted approximately 40 million trees in Africa. Following their successes, many African countries, such as Tanzania, Uganda, Malawi, Lesotho, Ethiopia, and Zimbabwe, have adopted tree-planting initiatives to act against deforestation and promote environmental sustainability. Besides environmental conservation, Maathai advocated for other social causes, including human rights, AIDS prevention, and women’s issues, representing these concerns in United Nations General Assembly meetings. In 2002, at 62, Maathai was elected as the representative of the Tetu constituency in Kenya’s parliament, and a year later was appointed Assistant Minister for Environment and Natural Resources, serving in both positions until 2007. In 2004, Maathai won the Nobel Peace Prize for her “holistic approach to sustainable development that embraces democracy, human rights, and women’s rights in particular,” becoming the first Black African woman winner. She continued campaigning for environmental causes and human rights, becoming the first president of the African Union’s Economic, Social and Cultural Council and as a Goodwill Ambassador to the Congo Basin Forest Ecosystem. In 2006, together with five other sister Nobel Peace winners, she founded the Nobel Women’s Initiative to unite and support global efforts for women’s rights, fostering peace, justice, and equality. Maathai died of ovarian cancer at the age of 71. Read more...

Marjory Stoneman Douglas was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota. At 6, her parents separated, and she and her mother moved in with her maternal grandparents in Taunton, Massachusetts. While growing up, her mother was committed several times to a mental sanitarium. From a young age, Douglas was an avid reader, and by her teens, she began to write. At 16, she contributed to the children’s publication St. Nicholas Magazine, and in the following year, won a prize for her story “An Early Morning Paddle.” After graduating from Taunton High School, Douglas studied English at Wellesley College, where she edited the college literary magazine and joined the suffrage club. In 1912, the same year she received her degree, her mother died of cancer. After working in various department stores, she met and married Kenneth Douglas, who was 30 years her senior. Soon, she discovered she married a con artist, who committed forgeries and theft crimes and tried to scam her father, whom she hadn’t been in touch with for 19 years. While her husband was in jail, Douglas’s father reconnected with her and persuaded her to file for divorce and reunite with him in Miami, Florida. Douglas began to work at her father’s paper, which later became The Miami Herald, writing the society column, covering tea parties and social events. Not long after, she received the responsibility of the editorial page. When the US entered WW1 in 1917, 27 years old Douglas took a writing assignment and became the first woman in Florida to enlist in the Naval Reserve. The following year, she joined the Red Cross and got stationed in Paris as a nurse. On her return to the US, Douglas was appointed assistant editor at The Miami Herald; she wrote a daily column, The Galley, addressing social issues close to her heart, such as women’s suffrage, civil rights, and urban planning for the growing population. In 1923, at 33, Douglas had a nervous breakdown and left her job in the newspaper. She began to work as a freelance writer, selling articles and short stories to various magazines, which enabled her to purchase a house in Coconut Grove. Douglas wrote about life events such as murders, fires, and hurricanes, and her own experiences, from WW1 to the life of the pioneers in South Florida. Between 1920 to 1990, she published over 100 stories and articles. In addition to writing, Douglas also taught at the University of Miami, served on the editorial board of the University of Miami Press, was the book review editor of The Miami Herald, and wrote plays for the Miami Theater. In 1942, Douglas was asked to write about the Miami River. During her research, she became aware of the threats of the demolition of the Everglades and wrote about it instead. In 1947, after five years of work, she published the book The Everglades: River of Grass, in which she discussed the construction of the Tamiami trail that was built around and through the Everglades and the construction of dams and canals that would drain the wetlands and destroy its wildlife and ecosystem. The book became a best-seller and initiated Douglas’s second career as an activist and spokeswoman for conservation. She played a crucial role in defeating plans to construct an airstrip within the heart of the Everglades, alter the natural water flow within the grasslands, and promote initiatives to restore the natural ecosystem. In 1969, at 79, Douglas founded the Friends of the Everglades, which enabled her to advocate for preserving the Everglades nationally and internationally. Thanks to her efforts, the Everglades was declared a National Park in 1947, an International Biosphere Preserve in 1976, a legislatively designated wilderness area in 1978, a Wetland of International Significance in 1986, and, in 1991, the Marjory Stoneman Douglas Everglades Protection Act passed, which fund water treatment facilities in the area. She was awarded by President Clinton the Presidential Medal of Freedom for her tireless work in 1993. All this time, Douglas never stopped writing; in 1951, she published her first novel, Road to the Sun, and in 1987, her autobiography, Voice of the River. Throughout her life, she published ten books and 20 short story collections. She died at the age of 108. Read more...

Katherine Millett was born in Saint Paul, Minnesota. She grew up with an alcoholic and abusive father, who left the family to live in poverty when she was 14. She was educated at parochial schools and later studied English literature at the University of Minnesota, graduating magna cum laude in 1956. Supported by her wealthy aunt, she furthered her education by studying at St Hilda’s College, one of the colleges of the University of Oxford in England, becoming the first woman to receive a first-class honors degree from the institute. She taught English briefly at the University of North Carolina before moving to New York City to pursue a career as an artist, supporting herself by working as a kindergarten teacher in Harlem. In 1961, at 27, Millett moved to Tokyo to study sculpture and held her first solo exhibition there. After two years, Millett returned to the US and taught English and Philosophy at Barnard College while creating art. At the time, she became involved with various women’s organizations, serving as a National Organization for Women committee member and joining the New York Radical Women and Radical Lesbians. In 1970, She began her writing career by contributing pieces to the anthology Sisterhood Is Powerful: An Anthology of Writings from the Women’s Liberation Movement. That same year, she published her Ph.D. dissertation as a book titled Sexual Politics. In this groundbreaking work, Millett used sociology and anthropology tools to define the goals and strategies of the women’s liberation movement. Although it cost her the teaching position in Bernard, the book became the movement’s manifesto, making her a prominent figure and the voice of the second wave of feminism in the US. The following year, Millett founded the self-supporting women’s artist colony, Women’s Art Colony and Tree Farm in Poughkeepsie, New York, later renamed the Millett Center for the Arts. In her second book, The Prostitution Papers (1971), Millett discussed the inherent relationship between prostitution and patriarchy and compared it to marriage contracts. Her following two books, published in 1974 and 1977, were autobiographies in which she explored her sexuality and role as a public figure. In the following decades, Millett continued to write and explore various aspects of feminism through writing and art. Throughout her life, she published ten books and exhibited her artwork in dozens of venues worldwide. She died of cardiac arrest several days before her 83rd birthday. Read more...

Isabella Bird was born in Boroughbridge, England. Growing up, the family frequently moved, and her parents home-schooled her. Since she was little, Bird suffered from various illnesses, including a spinal complaint, insomnia, and nervous headaches. To improve her health, she spent most of her time outdoors and learned to ride and row, skills that became helpful later in her life. As an avid reader and writer, she published her first essay at 16, discussing free trade versus protectionism. At 23, following a spine surgery, she was advised to go on a sea voyage to strengthen her health, and she embarked on her first journey to Canada and the US. The letters she wrote on this trip became the basis of her first book, An Englishwoman in America, published in 1856. Following her father’s death in 1858, Bird moved to Edinburgh with her mother and sister. During the next decade, she wrote about her experiences in North America, publishing two more books and several articles. In 1872, at 41, Bird once again left the UK, this time to Australia, New Zealand, and Hawaii. She compiled her adventures in the book Six Months In The Sandwich Islands, published in 1875. She continued to Colorado, traveling 800 miles of the Rocky Mountains on a horse. Her letters to her sister were published in The Leisure Hour and later in her bestseller book A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains. After a short stay in Edinburgh, she packed her bags and left for Japan, where she lived with the Ainu tribe, and wrote about it in the 1880 book Unbeaten Tracks in Japan. Then, she traveled to Korea, Vietnam, Singapore, the Malay Peninsula, Egypt, and the Sinai Peninsula. There she contracted typhoid fever and returned to Scotland to recover. There she married Dr. John Bishop, ten years her junior, although he died only five years after. Bird decided to devote her life to medical missions. In 1886, after studying medicine at St. Mary’s Hospital in London, she joined the missionary cause, and at 58, she began her journey to India, going through Turkey, Kurdistan, and Persia. That was the first trip in which Bird began to document her experiences not only by pen but also by image, taking photos of the places she visited and the people she met and publishing the pictures together with her writings. In India, Bird worked with the renowned medical missionary Fanny Jane Butler and founded the Henrietta Bird Hospital for Women in Punjab and the John Bishop Memorial Centre in Cashmere. By then, Bird’s recording of her extensive traveling made her a household name. Her writing style was accessible and entertaining, crafting her personal experiences relatable to all and making her readers feel like they were out there with her. In 1890, at 59, Bird became a fellow of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society, and the following year, she made history as the first woman to be elected as a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. Later she was also appointed a member of the Royal Photographic Society. In 1897, at 66, she traveled through China and Korea, publishing her encounters in the 1899 book The Yangtze Valley and Beyond. Bird’s final journey was to Morocco in 1900, where she joined the Berbers for a few months. Not long after her return, Bird fell ill. She died in her home in Edinburgh at the age of 73. Read more...

Ynés Enriquetta Julietta Mexía was born in Washington, DC, where her father worked as a Mexican diplomat. When she was 3, her parents separated, her father returned to Mexico, and she, her mother, and six half-siblings moved around until settling down in Maryland. At 17, after completing her studies, she intended to join a convent but eventually moved to Mexico to supervise her father’s ranch, which she took over after he died. In 1897, at 27, Mexía married her first husband. After he died in 1904, she operated a pet and poultry stock-raising business and remarried. After her second husband bankrupted her company, she divorced him in 1906. Following a mental and physical breakdown, 39 years old Mexía left Mexico to receive medical treatment in San Francisco. There, she became active in the early environmental movement in California and joined the Sierra Club and Save the Redwoods League. She began hiking, went camping, and became interested in nature, specifically plants. In 1921, at 51, Mexía enrolled at UC Berkeley to study botany and began to collect and categorize plants. Four years later, she went on her first plant-collecting expedition to Mexico. Soon, she realized she preferred to work alone and broke off from her group, collecting 500 specimens in two months. During the next 13 years, Mexía traveled the Americas, collecting plants from Tierra del Fuego on the border of Chile and Argentina to the northern regions of Alaska. Mexía stood out not only by the number of expeditions she had or the mileage she covered but also by being an older woman who traveled alone on horseback, wearing trousers, and camping outdoors. Mexía regularly published the documentation of her adventures in the Audubon Society of the Pacific’s newsletter. While not on one of her expeditions, she lectured about them at various scientific organizations. In 1938, Mexía got sick during her expedition in Mexico. She had to cut the trip short and go back to the US. She died from lung cancer the following month at 68. In only 13 years of her career, Mexía collected over 145,000 plant specimens, discovering 500 new species. Read more...

Born Edith Newbold Jones in New York City into a wealthy and socialite family. From 4 to 10, she traveled with her family throughout Europe, was educated by governesses and private tutors, and became fluent in French, German, and Italian. After returning to the US, she used her father’s library to further her knowledge. From an early age, she wrote fiction and poetry, and at 11, she tried to complete her first novel. At 15, she published her first work under a pseudonym, a translation of a German poem. That same year, she wrote her first novella, Fast and Loose. The following year, she published her first poetry collection, titled Verses. She continued to publish her poems in various newspapers and magazines. At 17, after coming out as a debutante to society, she stopped publishing for almost a decade, dedicating her time to the social events of the upper class, which she later used as inspiration for her work. At 23, she married Edward Robbins Wharton. The couple settled in Newport, RI, and took annual vacations in Europe, mainly in Italy, which was her favorite. At the time, she returned to writing, combining it with her love to design; in 1897, she co-authored the design and architecture book The Decoration of Houses. In 1889, at 27, Wharton published the poem The Last Giustiniani, followed by the short story Mrs. Manstey’s View. In 1902, the Whartons bought The Mount estate in Lenox, MA, where she designed its interior and gardens. There, with the right setting, she wrote some of her best-known works, including the best-seller The House of Mirth in 1905 and Ethan Frome in 1911. In her writing, she used the physical space of the house to mirror the relationship between its inhabitants and their emotions. She dealt with topics such as individual and social fulfillment, the desire for freedom, old money vs. new money, and repressed sexuality, criticizing the mannerisms of the golden-age high society and reviling its hypocrisies. At the time, Wharton and her husband’s relationship disintegrated, and they divorced in 1913. Afterward, she moved permanently to France. When WWI broke out, Wharton founded several humanitarian organizations, established hostels for refugees, living facilities for tuberculosis sufferers, workshops for unemployed seamstresses, and schools for refugee children. In 1916, amid the war, she received the French Legion of Honor for her charitable work. She also contributed her writing skills by publishing testimonies from the French frontline. The war did not prevent Wharton from writing original materials, and between 1914-1918, she published two novels, two short story collections, and a non-fictional book titled Fighting France: From Dunkerque to Belfort. In 1920, Wharton published her most famous work, the novel The Age of Innocence, for which she won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction, becoming the first woman to win the award. Throughout her life, Wharton published over 50 books, including 18 novels, 7 novellas, 85 short stories, 3 poetry collections, an autobiography, and a dozen books on travel and design. She died of a stroke at the age of 75. Read more...

Maria Gaetana Agnesi was born in Milan, Italy, to a wealthy family. Recognized as a child prodigy, she spoke Italian and French by age five and Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Spanish, and German by eleven. From an early age, she showed interest in mathematics and philosophy, and with her father’s encouragement, Agnesi learned with the best available tutors. At 15, her father started hosting regular gatherings of the most educated men in Bologna, and Agnesi presented and defended a series of theses on profoundly complex philosophical questions. A compilation of 191 essays based on her discussions was published in 1738. By then, 20 years old Agnesi, who became strongly religious, intended to join a convent, but her father refused since she was the oldest child and he wanted her to teach her siblings. Instead, he agreed that she could live in a semi-retirement form, with no social interactions, so that she could devote her time to learning mathematics. Her father hired the monk and professor of mathematics, Ramiro Rampinelli, to tutor her; Rampinelli introduced her to the new fields of differential and integral calculus. Around that time, Agnesi wrote a commentary on the work of the Marquis de l’Hôpital, Traité antique des sections coniques, but it was never published. In 1748, at 30, Agnesi published a two-volume book titled The Instituzioni Analitiche ad uso della gioventù italiana (Analytical Institutions for the Use of Italian Youth). In this work, she discussed integral and differential calculus and defined the cubic curve, today known as the ‘witch of Agnesi.’ Her work got recognized as the finest existing introduction to the works of the Swiss mathematician Leonhard Euler, translated into French and English, and received praise even from Pope Benedict XIV, who appointed her professor of mathematics at the University of Bologna. Even though she never served in the position, she is considered the second woman ever to be granted a professorship at a university, Following her father’s death in 1752, Agnesi became free to devote her time to charitable work and theological studies. She worked with sick and poor people and founded several hospices. In 1783, at 65, she established a home for Milan’s elderly and moved to live there. She died at 81 and was buried in a mass grave for the poor. Read more...