Any resemblance to a boring history class is purely coincidental!
One of the publicity photos Annie had made on her adventure, 1894.
Her moments in the spotlight may have been limited, but Annie Cohen Kopchovsky lived them hard and bright as a marketer, adventurer, storyteller, and the first woman to bicycle* around the world.
(*or possibly, “around the world with a bicycle”- she played a little loose with the rules at points.)
We have only a general idea of what she looked like, this is as good a guess as any…except she wasn’t much for the fighting, more a behind the scenes pirate-master.
History knows her by many names: Shi Xiang Gu, Shi Yang, Cheng I Sao, Zheng Yi Sao, Ching Shih and no one knows what her original name was! We had to pick one to use so we went with the easiest for our American accents: Ching Shih. (more…)
Right before Audrey set a new high for superstar status in Breakfast at Tiffany’s
When we left Audrey in Part One she had finished her first Hollywood starring role in Roman Holiday, filmed her second in Sabrina, done a Broadway play, Ondine, with beau hunky Mel Ferrer, and had just won an Academy Award for Roman Holiday AND a Tony Award for Ondine!
Circa 1956
Audrey Hepburn’s life had more turmoil, sadness, disappointment and some very hard years than her calm demeanor would suggest. She’s thought of as a movie star of the highest order, a style icon and a classic beauty, and she was all of those things, but she was also a wife (a couple times) a mother (also a couple times) and a humanitarian who was compelled to repay kindnesses she had experienced.
Phillis Wheatley was an accomplished poet and the first African American to have a book published. Her work chronicles Revolutionary War era America, focuses on the people she knew and explains the faith that she held dear. The fact that she was ripped from her family, sold into slavery and grew up in an unusual situation gave depth and a unique perspective to her work but, most importantly, makes her someone we all need to know.
The only original painting of her disappeared, this is a copy of that painting done when she was about 25. Courtesy bathory.com
We step away from our usual stories of remarkable women who overcame obstacles to create admirable good in the world to discuss this remarkable woman who overcame obstacles and created a whole lot of chaos in her world. And not the good kind. Her true story is still being debated, myths and legends swirl through it, but the facts alone are pretty horrifying.
This episode has a really loud NO LITTLE EARS warning. Also if violence, sexual assault, and blood are your triggers, you might want to go listen to Beatrix Potter or Lillian Gilbreth and skip this one. (Wow, podcasters who tell you to skip their show?! We love you, we want you to come back, so yes…or at the very least we can say that we warned you.) (more…)
Most grade school kids will tell you that Harriet Tubman was an escaped slave and conductor on the Underground Railroad which is a great start–but she was so much more! A nurse, a spy, a military leader, a public speaker, a humanitarian, a wife and mother who did everything in her power to keep her family together…and she did it all with a traumatic brain injury.
She was a hero in every sense of the word.
Everyone has a lesson to teach us, even the hard living, hard drinking, crime breaking ones who bucked convention and survived in a dangerous time and place. These two women of the American wild west fall on a side of the life-choices spectrum that we don’t usually talk about, but it’s time that we did. We thought it was time to tell the stories of two women with fabulous, well-known nicknames that mask who they really were. (Lady Gaga and Madonna are amazing but come back in 120 years and we’ll talk.) (more…)
Anne Frank’s life was only 15 years long, but her legacy? It’s going to outlast us all.
Annelies Marie Frank was born on June 12, 1929 in Frankfurt, Germany, second child to Otto and Edith who were both from well-to-do, German Jewish families. Otto was a decorated officer in the German army, well traveled, spent a couple years in the United States and went back to Germany to work at his family’s bank and throat lozenge company. Edith graduated from a Protestant girl’s school, and worked for her family’s business. (more…)
