Despite her work in the field, though, Thatcher didn't love chemistry. ("I just didn't like staying in the laboratory that long," she once explained. "I wanted to have more direct work to do with people.") But her work in food engineering led to her introduction to Denis Thatcher, then the managing director of his family's chemical and paint company. Denis encouraged Margaret to switch careers -- from chemistry to the field that would prove her real, if not her first, love: the law.

Hat tip Chris Jones and Alice Bell.

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