February 19: Karen Silkwood

Karen Silkwood, US chemical technician at the Kerr-McGee plutonium fields near Crescent, Oklahoma, activist and whistle-blower, was born on 19 February 1946.  She was the subject of the 1983 film, Silkwood. 10 things you might not know about her:

1. She was born and brought up in Texas, the oldest of three sisters.
2. At school, she played the flute, was on the volleyball team and a member of the National Honor Society. She was especially good at chemistry and went to college to study to be a medical technician.
3. In 1965, she married William Meadows, an oil pipeline worker. She had three children with him, but by 1972 the marriage had broken down due to his spending habits and because he was having an affair with one of her friends. She left him, giving him custody of the children and moved to Oklahoma City.
4. It was here that she joined Kerr-McGee, a company which produced Plutonium pellets for use in nuclear reactors. She also joined the local Oil, Chemical & Atomic Workers Union and took part in a strike at the plant.
5. She was the first woman from the plant to be elected to the union's bargaining committee, and was given the job of investigating health and safety issues.
6. Her investigations soon uncovered any number of dangerous violations of health regulations - faulty equipment, insufficient training and monitoring, improper storage of samples and lack of adequate shower facilities at the plant. She and two colleagues went to Washington DC, to raise concerns with national union leaders and the Atomic Energy Commission.
7. She began carrying a notebook around with her to record any dangerous practices she found, becoming quite obsessive about it. She performed routine checks on herself and found that her body contained almost 400 times the legal limit for plutonium contamination, even on days when she'd only done paperwork. There was even contamination in her house, and some of her property had to be destroyed. The company had marked her as a troublemaker and counter-claimed that she'd contaminated herself to make the company look bad.
8. In due course, she'd collected enough evidence to go public. She contacted David Burnham, a New York Times journalist, and arranged to meet him, bringing with her a folder containing her findings. After a union meeting in a local cafe, she set off alone to make the 30 mile drive to Oklahoma City. She never arrived. She was found dead in her car, which had run off the road. The official report said she had fallen asleep at the wheel because there were traces of a sedative in her blood. She was 28.
9. There was however, damage to the back of her car, which her friends said was not there before, which wasn't explained by the official report of the accident. Her personal effects were recovered from the car, with one exception - her folder of evidence against the company, which was never found, although people who had been at the meeting were sure she'd had it with her when she got in the car. It has also been questioned whether she would have taken drugs before such an important meeting. In the weeks before her death, Karen had been certain someone was out to get her and had told her family about several threatening phone calls. However, there has never been enough evidence to prove foul play. The lawsuit filed by her family against the company in 1979 was the longest trial held in Oklahoma at that point. The jury found the company responsible for $10,000,000 in punitive damages. In the end, the company settled out of court and paid $1.38 million - but admitted no liability.
10. Her story was made into a film, Silkwood, in 1983 starring Meryl Streep in the title role, and a book by Richard L. Rashke, The Killing of Karen Silkwood, published in 2000. It's also been said that the assassination scene in The China Syndrome, a 1979 film, was based on what could have happened to Karen Silkwood - so much so that the jury in the Oklahoma trial were banned from watching it.

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25 August: Mother Teresa

Mother Teresa was born on this date in 1910. Here are some things you might not know about her:

1. Her real name was Anjezë (Agnes) Gonxhe (Albanian for "rosebud") Bojaxhiu. Teresa was the name she adopted on taking her religious vows. She wanted to be named for Thérèse de Lisieux, the patron saint of missionaries, but another nun in the same convent had already chosen that name, so Agnes opted for the Spanish spelling Teresa.
2. The young Agnes knew by the age of twelve that she wanted to be a nun. She left home at age 18 to join the Sisters of Loreto as a missionary, and never saw her mother or sister again.
3. Initially, her missionary work involved teaching in school in India, but later received what she referred to as "the call within the call", telling her to leave the convent and live among the poor. This she did, believing it to be a direct order from God. The first year was difficult - she experienced first hand what it was like to be poor and to have to beg for food. She was often sorely tempted to return to the relatively comfortable life at the convent, but resisted, writing in her diary that she believed she was being tempted by the devil, not unlike Jesus was during His forty days in the wilderness.
4. Her organisation, the Missionaries of Charity, began with permission from the Vatican in 1950. Mother Teresa herself stated that its mission was to care for, "the hungry, the naked, the homeless, the crippled, the blind, the lepers, all those people who feel unwanted, unloved, uncared for throughout society, people that have become a burden to the society and are shunned by everyone."
5. Her first free hospice for the poor was a converted Hindu temple, and it opened in 1952.
6. In 1982, Mother Teresa rescued 37 children who were trapped in a hospital in Beirut. She brokered a temporary cease fire between the Israeli army and Palestinian guerrillas, allowing her and Red Cross workers, to go into the war zone and get the children out.
7. You'd think someone like Mother Teresa would have an absolutely unshakeable faith - but her letters and diaries tell a different story. She often felt separated from God, and at times struggled to believe He even existed at all. This was a great source of pain for her, but a fairly common experience in the lives of saints, including Mother Teresa's namesake, St. Therese of Lisieux, who called it a "night of nothingness."
8. Mother Teresa was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 "for work undertaken in the struggle to overcome poverty and distress, which also constitutes a threat to peace." She gave the prize money to the poor of India. Earthly rewards were only important, she said, if they helped her help the world's needy.
9. In 2003, she was beatified as "Blessed Teresa of Calcutta". The miracle required for this was recognised by the Vatican in 2002, when a woman was said to have been healed of cancer when a locket containing a picture of Mother Teresa was placed on her abdomen. Critics, including the woman's husband, claimed there was no miracle and that the woman had been cured by conventional medicine, and possibly never had cancer at all. A second miracle is needed before Mother Teresa can be made a saint.
10. On 28 August 2010, to commemorate the 100th anniversary of her birth, the government of India issued a special 5 Rupee coin. This was the sum she first arrived in India with.

12th May: Florence Nightingale

Florence Nightingale was born on this date in 1820. Some things you might not know about the nursing pioneer:

1. She was born in Florence and named after the city she was born in.
2. Florence Nightingale's family didn't want her to go into nursing. They wanted her to get married and have babies. She didn't listen - she educated herself in the science of nursing instead.
3. She turned down at least one marriage proposal, from politician and poet Richard Monckton Milnes, 1st Baron Houghton, because she was convinced marriage would interfere with her vocation.
4. Despite rejecting traditional roles for women and pursuing a career, she wasn't a feminist and believed that women were not as capable as men.
5. She was good at maths as well as nursing and was a pioneer in the use of graphics to illustrate statistical information. She was an early adopter of the pie chart and even developed a new type of pie chart, the polar area diagram, sometimes also called the Nightingale rose diagram, a circular histogram, to illustrate patient mortality in the military field hospital she managed.
6. When inspecting her Crimean hospitals, she would travel on horseback or in a Mule cart. She only started using a carriage with a hood and curtains after her mule cart overturned and she narrowly escaped serious injury.
7. She set up the first secular nursing school, the Nightingale Training School at St. Thomas' Hospital in 1860. By 1865, her first class of trainees had started work at the Liverpool Workhouse Infirmary. Her school is now called the Florence Nightingale School of Nursing and Midwifery, and is part of King's College London.
8. She wrote a book, Notes on Nursing, which is still read by trainee nurses today as it deals with the fundamentals of nursing - patient care and cleanliness.
9. In 1883, Nightingale was awarded the Royal Red Cross by Queen Victoria. In 1904, she was appointed a Lady of Grace of the Order of St John (LGStJ). In 1907, she became the first woman to be awarded the Order of Merit. In 1908, she was given the Honorary Freedom of the City of London.
10. It is said that during her lifetime, Nightingale owned over 60 Cats, and at one point had 17 at once. Her favourite was a large Persian called Mr. Bismarck. “Cats possess more sympathy and feeling than human beings,” she said. The fact that they helped control the disease-carrying Rats in field hospitals probably helped, as well.

9th June: Elizabeth Garrett Anderson

Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, first female doctor in the UK was born on 9 June 1836.

1. When Elizabeth was born, her father was a pawnbroker, and the family lived above his shop in Commercial Road, Whitechapel. Later, he went into the corn and coal business and became very successful. The family then moved to Aldeburgh in Suffolk.
2. Elizabeth and her elder sister were home schooled at first, initially by their mother and later by a governess. At 13, she was sent to school in Blackheath, London, along with her sister. Elizabeth was not impressed with her governess or the teachers at her school. Although she gained a love of reading, she would have preferred more maths and science to be taught at the school.
3. Although her father was keen for his daughters to have a good education, they weren't expected to actually use it. After she finished school, Elizabeth returned home and was expected to help run the home until she found a suitable husband. This wasn't enough for the intelligent and energetic Elizabeth, who continued her studies in Latin and arithmetic. She would gather her ten siblings together for weekly lectures and discussions on current affairs.
4. On visits to London, Elizabeth met two women who would have a profound effect on her life. One was Emily Davies, a feminist, who introduced her to the women's rights movement; and Elizabeth Blackwell, who was the first woman to qualify as a doctor in the USA.
5. At first, no medical school would accept her as a student, so she became a nurse at Middlesex Hospital and attended the lectures for the male doctors. However, the male students complained and had her banned from the lecture theatre. By then, though, she had managed to obtain an honours certificate in chemistry and materia medica. Meanwhile, she privately obtained a certificate in anatomy and physiology.
6. Her next strategy was to study with the Society of Apothecaries, which did not specifically ban women from qualifying, and their certificate would enable her to become a doctor. As soon as she qualified, the society changed the rules so that no more women could study with them.
7. Although now qualified, no hospital would employ her as a doctor, so she opened her own practice in London.
8. Elizabeth found out that the University of Sorbonne in Paris was in favour of admitting female medical students, so she learned French so that she could go and study there. All her hard work was finally rewarded in 1870, when she got her medical degree.
9. Medicine was not her only passion - politics was another. She remained involved in the women's right movement and became a member of the militant Women's Social and Political Union at the age of 72. She went on protest marches, narrowly escaping being arrested, and lecture tours. In 1866, Elizabeth and Emily Davies presented petitions signed by more than 1,500 asking that female heads of household be given the vote.
10. She was not only the first female doctor in the UK but also the first female mayor, when she was elected mayor of Aldeburgh in 1908.

May 21st: Elizabeth Fry

On this date in 1780 (two days after Dark Day!) Elizabeth Gurney was born. At 20, she married Joseph Fry and became Elizabeth Fry. She is best known for prison reform. Since 2002, she has been depicted on the Bank of England £5 note. Here are 10 things you may not know about Elizabeth Fry:

1. Her father and husband were both bankers, and on her mother's side is related to the Barclays, who founded Barclays bank.
2. Although most famous for prison reform, she also founded a homeless shelter and a school for nurses. The latter inspired Florence Nightingale, who chose nurses trained at Fry's school to go with her to the Crimean War.
3. Elizabeth Fry found time to do all her humanitarian work despite having eleven children!
4. She was also a Quaker minister.
5. Elizabeth Fry was the first woman to give evidence to Parliament when, in 1818, she spoke to a House of Commons committee about conditions in British prisons.
6. During her lifetime, she had some high profile and influential admirers who took interest in her work, including Robert Peel, the King of Prussia and Queen Victoria.
7. On the £5 note, she is shown reading to prisoners at Newgate prison, and the design includes a key, recognising the fact that she was awarded a key to the prison in recognition of her work.
8. In 2002, on Elizabeth Fry's birthday, the then new £5 note was temporarily suspended by the Bank of England because the serial numbers could be rubbed off the varnished paper.
9. There is a Terracotta bust of her in the gatehouse of HMP Wormwood Scrubs and a stone statue of her in the Old Bailey.
10. When she died in 1845, over a thousand people attended her funeral. Seamen of the Ramsgate Coast Guard flew their flag at half mast, something they had only ever done for reigning monarchs before. Then, the Lord Mayor of London proposed an asylum, the Elizabeth Fry Refuge, in her memory to be built in Hackney.