In “Hidden in History: The Untold Stories of Female Explorers and Adventurers,” travel the globe — and history. While it’s fairly common to have women researchers, pilots, and captains in the 21st century, this was not always the case. Exploring and adventuring, even in the name of science and research, were privileged activities reserved solely for men. But some women just couldn’t stay put, even when faced with the harsh resistance of those who favored the norm. These women broke with convention and trekked into the unknown, paving the way for women of today to seek adventure as they see fit. In 1766, Jeanne Baret performed botanical research as she made a complete voyage around the world, making her the first woman ever recorded to do so. Marguerite Hay Drummond-Hay became the first woman to circumnavigate the globe from the sky when she flew around the world in a zeppelin prior to World War II. Louise Arner Boyd traveled to the Arctic in 1926 –– a hard journey even in modern times. Now we have women like Sylvia Earle, a world-renowned oceanographer and the first woman to walk on the ocean floor, and Barbara Hillary, the first woman of color to travel to both the North and the South Pole. With this installment in the Hidden in History series, readers can explore for themselves the exciting stories, harrowing adventures, and meaningful research conducted by these daring women. No longer forgotten in the past, the adventurous women of yesterday can once again inspire tomorrow’s explorers to chart their own expeditions into the great unknown.

Although Amelia Earhart remains the best-known female pilot of the 1930s, Jacqueline Cochran stood as the more important aviation pioneer and America's top woman pilot. Among her many accomplishments, Cochran was the first female aviator to win the Bendix Air Race, to fly a bomber, to break the speed of sound, and to participate in astronaut training. This revealing biography explores Cochran's childhood in an impoverished Florida mill town, her early career as a pilot, and her role in creating and leading the WASPs during World War II. It also chronicles her postwar exploits, including her participation in the NASA space program, her unsuccessful 1956 bid for Congress, and her surprising reluctance to crusade for the advancement of women. This detailed profile, removing Cochran from Earhart's shadow, firmly establishes the aviatrix as a pivotal figure in the history of women in aviation and in war.

Help middle and high school students find the books they need for school reports quickly and easily. The author has indexed the lives and accomplishments of more than 5,700 notable men and women from ancient through modern times in this tool that will aid librarians, media specialists, and teachers with a student's search to find biographies written especially for their age group.

A thirst for adventure, a deep desire to push themselves beyond their comfort zones, and an innate curiosity about the world and its peoples drive the biographies of the ten women explorers profiled here. As explorers they bring skills in cartography, geography, history, anthropology, botany, photography, linguistics and writing to their travels. Their stories begin with Sacagawea, a Native guide in the Lewis and Clark expedition in 1805, and end in the present, with Mattie McNair and Denise Martin, the Canadian leaders of Arctic and Antarctic expeditions. These are stories of women who dared to push beyond the safety of their own communities in order to live their dreams.

Brief biographies of five African American scientists of this century.