Sirimavo Bandaranaike, Sri Lanka
Fifty years ago, Sirimavo Bandaranaike was elected, becoming the first female head of government the world had ever known. Her victory was so groundbreaking, no one knew what to call her. "There will be need for a new word," London's Evening News wrote the day after she was elected as Prime Minister in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). "Presumably, we shall have to call her a stateswoman." Bandaranaike assumed the role of party leader after her husband was assassinated by a Buddhist monk in 1959. When her party won the July 1960 election, she took the country's reins and held them until 1965. She would serve as Prime Minister again from 1970 to 1977 and from 1994 to 2000. It was her daughter, who had become the country's first female President in 1994, who appointed her to her final term, though the position had become largely ceremonial at that point. She stepped down in April 2000 and died later that year -- on the very day she cast her ballot in the country's elections.
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Indira Gandhi, India
She was the nation's daughter, brought up under the close watch of both her father, who was India's first Prime Minister after decades of British rule, and her country. The TIME magazine cover not long after her election in January 1966 read, "Troubled India in a Woman's Hands." Those hands led India for much of the next two decades, through recession, famine, the detonation of the nation's first atomic bomb and a civil war in neighboring Pakistan that, under her guidance, saw the creation of a new state, Bangladesh.
Golda Meir, Israel
Once called "the only man in the Cabinet," Golda Meir was a formidable figure in Israeli politics. Tall, gaunt, blunt and determined, to the world she embodied the steely stubbornness of the Israeli spirit. "There is a type of woman," she once said, "who does not let her husband narrow her horizon." After an illustrious political career, including service as Israel's Labor Minister and Foreign Minister, among other high-level positions, she was called out of retirement at age 70 to lead her country as Prime Minister from 1969 to 1974.
Margaret Thatcher, England
Called Britain's Iron Lady, Margaret Thatcher was a woman with high standards, a short temper and a taste for whiskey. A suburban housewife turned one of the world's most powerful women, she ruled from 1979 to 1990. Thatcher was Europe's first female Prime Minister and the only British Prime Minister to win three consecutive terms, giving her the longest spell in office since 1827. In her 11 years, she enabled the rise of the privatizing, capitalist state and saw the collapse of the Soviet Union; she has been called, for personality as much as achievement, the most renowned British political leader since Winston Churchill.
Corazon Aquino, Philippines
After the assassination of her charismatic husband, the pious Catholic widow Corazon Aquino won over the public and overthrew the dictatorial regime widely blamed for his murder. In a spectacle that added the phrase people power to the global lexicon, millions of supporters took to the streets to ensure Aquino's eventual rise to the office of the President in February 1986. Though tested by several attempted military coups and other setbacks, she managed to preserve the democracy her husband had died for. She was named TIME's Person of the Year in 1986 -- the first woman to receive the designation since Queen Elizabeth II in 1952.
Benazir Bhutto, Pakistan
A daughter of the Pakistan dynasty, Benazir Bhutto followed her father into politics and died because of it. Young and glamorous, she was a refreshing contrast to the male-dominated political establishment. She led her country as Prime Minister from 1988 to 1990 and again from 1993 to 1996 -- both times, she was dismissed from office by the President for alleged corruption, charges she steadfastly denied and called politically motivated. She was assassinated in 2007 while campaigning to bring back democracy to the then military-ruled country; her husband, also tarnished with allegations of graft, is now President.
Angela Merkel, Germany
Angela Merkel is a rarity in German politics: she's the first Chancellor to have grown up in communist East Germany, the first female to lead and the youngest-ever incumbent. She spent decades being underrated but never took it to heart. "You could say I've never underestimated myself," Merkel told TIME in January 2010. "There's nothing wrong with being ambitious." One hundred days after taking office in late 2005, a poll named her the most popular Chancellor in German history.
Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, Liberia
In April 2006, First Lady Laura Bush described Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf as a woman who has never stopped working for her country. "[Her] courage and commitment to her country are an inspiration to me and women around the world," Bush wrote in TIME. Johnson-Sirleaf started her political career as a Liberian Cabinet Minister in the 1970s, went on to become a senior United Nations administrator in the 1990s and, when elected President of Liberia in 2006, became the first African woman to be elected head of state. Since taking the helm, she has pushed to reclaim what her nation lost during years of civil war. With strong will and determination, she has vowed to fight against corruption and move "forward into a future that is filled with hope and promise." To honor her triumphs, then U.S. President George W. Bush awarded her a 2007 Presidential Medal of Freedom. As Laura Bush wrote, "Johnson-Sirleaf is an example of what can happen when girls are educated."
SOURCE: TIME Magazine
