Joan of Arc

Joan is one of the most famous women in history for good reason. The broad facts of her feats are well documented, yet how exactly she accomplished them defy comprehension. 1420s France was a complete debacle, still recovering from the Black Death, further decimated by war, and at one point nominally ruled by an English prince who happened to be nine months old. Enter Joan, who somehow convinced King Charles VII that she – an illiterate teenager – was the one to take command of his army at Orleans, where a grueling siege had been raging for months. After her arrival, the siege was lifted in only nine days. That ended up as the pivotal battle in the epic struggle that was the Hundred Years' War, and France had her to thank for not becoming a part of England – posthumously, anyway. She was executed by a pro-English tribunal for heresy, in which the only specific charge she was proven guilty of was wearing men's clothing.

Picture via Wikimedia Commons