Today (August 9th) is National Women’s Day, celebrated in South Africa as a holiday. Women have a long history of oppression but this day represents the fight. And women getting a step closer to freedom and equality.

The fight continues, but here is a look at the timeline of events that show women’s resilience and determination. (Credit: NationalDay.com)

The March – 1956

More than 20,000 women participate in a peaceful protest at the Union Buildings in Pretoria against the Urban Areas Act of 1950.

1994 – National Women’s Day is Born

The holiday is written up as a national holiday and it is celebrated for the very first time.

2000 – A Monument is Raised

On one of the many celebrated National Women’s Day occasions, the Malibongwe Embokodweni monument is erected to honor the event in 1956.

2006 – Re-enactment

On the 50th anniversary of the original protest, a march re-enactment is held.

To celebrate National Women’s Day, I’ve compiled a list of women who were making moves long before we even knew to recognize them. They were bold and unapologetic and ultimately were a part of changing history.

Clara Barton
Clara Barton (Photo by Library of Congress/Corbis/VCG via Getty Images)

At 59 years old, Clara Barton founded the American Red Cross in 1881, which she ran for 23 years.
Claudette Colvin

Most of us know the story of Rosa Parks who refused to give up her seat on the bus in Montgomery, Alabama. But you might not know that Colvin did the same thing — nine months before Parks did. She was only 15 at the time, and was one of the first Black activists to openly challenge the law.
Marsha P. Johnson

Johnson was a Black transgender woman and activist most known for her involvement with the Stonewall Inn riots. An uprising in 1969 against police brutality by New York City’s LGBTQ community. At the time, it was illegal to serve openly LGBTQ people alcohol or for them to dance with one another.
Marie Curie
Marie Curie (1867-1934), Polish-French physicist who won two Nobel Prizes, in 1903 for Physics and 1911 for Chemistry. She discovered that radiology could help to cure cancer. She developed a mobile x-ray machine. And she was the first woman to be awarded a Nobel Prize and the first person to ever be awarded two Nobel Prizes.

Marie Curie was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize. In 1903 Curie along with her husband and a colleague were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics. Then in 1911, she won a Nobel Prize in Chemistry. She was the only person to win the award in two different sciences. Curie was also the first woman to become a professor at the University of Paris.
Octavia Butler

Though many credit Donald Trump for coining the phrase “Make America Great Again” , it was actually a Black woman novelist who crafted the message first. Octavia Butler first used the slogan almost 20 years before Trump. According to Fusion, she used “Let’s Make America Great Again” in her 1998 book Parable of the Talents.

according to Fusion. The dystopian novel depicts a future United States in which slavery has been reintroduced and a fundamentalist Christian sect has taken control, systematically purging the country of non-Christian faiths.
Lyda D. Newman

Newman was involved in the hair-care industry. In 1898, she received a patent for her invention of the first synthetic hairbrush. Her invention made it easier to clean out the brush. She also introduced synthetic bristles.
Valentina Tereshkova

Tereshkova was the first woman to travel into space. She was selected out of more than 400 applicants to pilot Vostok 6 on June 16, 1963. She spent almost three days in space and orbited Earth 48 times.
Junko Tabei

On May 16, 1975 Junko Tabei became the first woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest.
Indira Ghandi

This trailblazer of a politician served four terms as India’s first and only female prime minister until being assassinated in 1984.
Margaret Sanger

When you think of birth control, Margaret Sanger should be the name you think of the most. Sanger opened up the first birth control clinic in Brownsville, Brooklyn. She was arrested shortly after for distributing birth control information, which was illegal at the time. She spent 30 days in jail, during which time she got alot of substantial media attention and support from the public.