Too bad men write all the history books. We'd have so many more to choose from.

Mother Teresa

My mom!

Joan of Arc.

Florence Nightingale

Amellia Earhart and Amy Johnson both brave ladies that must have had balls of steel to do what they did.

you are. You just don t believe it yet!

Mary, the mother of Jesus, or Sarah, Abraham's wife. Both women had great faith, and were strong mother's.

my mother. she put up with me and my sense of humor and did not kill me. MOM, I miss you, and love you.

Elizabth I or Cleopatra - can't decide

hard to pick only one...maybe Theodora or Catherine the Great.

According to me the greatest women in History is Jhansi Rani or Queen of Jhansi.. She was a brave women.. She also fought against many rulers who wanted to capture India and she defeated them.

Eleanor of Aquitaine. She held and ruled the heartland of modern France, and, when rejected by the French king after only bearing him daughters, she chose her own husband, someone she could see greatness in- Henry II of England (she was 11 years older than him). To spite Louis, she bore Henry five sons and three daughters. They had the most tumultuous relationship- she plotted against him, he locked her up and threatened to throw away the key- but they stayed married and she led the most incredible life. She financed the arts and music, she went on Crusade to Jerusalem, despite people whining about a woman going. Her reason: I'm providing the money. I decide who goes. She even ruled England as regent for her son Richard the Lionheart. And she lived 82 years, from 1122 to 1204, influencing history with her longevity. I love her...and I must boast that I am descended from her through several of her children. (Not a unique descent, but one shared by most English, actually, if only they would go a hunting)

Princess Diana

Elizabeth I of England, and Catherine the Great of Russia are two great ones that come to mind. Another more recent one is Margaret Thatcher.

Gosh this is a tuffie, Eve (the first woman)?

Wow, too many to actually list, but I will give my top three in no particular order: Joan of Arc Golda Meir Margaret Thatcher

Hilary Clinton

Kathy Bates.

Joan of Arc no doubt

I don't dare say my Mom, she'd conk me one for implying that she's old since this is in Historical Figures. Elizabeth McIntosh, one of the Ladies Who Lied. I attended a lecture she gave a few years ago and she was AMAZING. Old age has not hurt her any, sharp as a tack and witty. My grandfather was typically chauvinistic, but he had nothing but respect for Betty. That says a lot. ---- Excerpt from The Ladies Who Lied http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/05/31/reviews/980531.31westlat.html Elizabeth P. McIntosh, a reporter and the daughter and wife of reporters, was working for two Honolulu newspapers when the Japanese brought the United States into World War II by bombing Pearl Harbor. She became a war correspondent, and by 1943 had been recruited into the Office of Strategic Services, the O.S.S., the less louche forerunner of our own C.I.A. There she worked in the blandly named Morale Operations, the home of so-called ''black'' propaganda, ''which today,'' she points out, ''is often called disinformation.'' She took to the dirty work like a barn owl, becoming an expert in the concoction of rumors and lies meant to sap the morale of the Japanese. As she says, ''After spending three years in M.O. disguising the truth, slanting stories and developing rumors, I had great difficulty writing a straight news story once the war was over.''

It is hard for anyone to compare to Joan of Arc because she was so amazing. Learn more about her at http://www.maidofheaven.com

Joan of Ark

Eve. Whoever she was, whenever she was, whereever she was. (No, I'm not a creationist, but there still had to be a first!)

Sarah Palin! My 2 cents.

Emmy Noether. Who? The greatest mathematician of the 20th century. She showed how the fundamental laws of physics, conservation of mass/energy, of linear momentum etc. arise inevitably from the symmetry of emptiness, which looks the same wherever you look and is the same through every conceivable transformation. It is a scandal that she is not more famous.

As "Greatness" is primarily a measure of fame and the depth and breadth of public regard/love/awe/adoration, and *not* a measure of how good, accomplished or influential a person actually is or was in their own lifetime, I'd have to say it's no contest: The Virgin Mary There are certainly many other women who are far more accomplished in secular and even relgious pursuits, but none of them are, have been, or will be loved and adored as the queen of heaven by hundreds of millions of people over the centuries, nor do they inspire anywhere near as many people to live lives of purity, love, and mercy. Whether Mary deserves all this, or not, is irrelevent, since "Greatness" like "the size of a man's heart." (to quote the Wizard of Oz) "is measured not by how much a person loves, but by how much he is loved by others." (And just for the record, I'm not Catholic; I think that Marian Theology is un-Biblical, excessive, and certainly borders (at least) on the idolatrous; but as an honest and objective historian, I have to admit the shear fact of the Cult of the Virgin's overwhelming place in history.)

And when the angels said: O Marium! surely Allah has chosen you and purified you and chosen you above the women of of the world.(The Holy Qur'an)(chapter : The Family of Imran)

my mom and god mom.

according to Napoleon, the one that had the most kids. Personally I like Cathrine I of Russia.