IN September, people are the world celebrate the many women achievers for the great things they have accomplished. This week we highlight a few of these women and their achievements.

1. Clara Barton got involved with tending to the needy, when she treated injured Union soldiers on the battlefield during the Civil War. She was later the founder and first president of the American Red Cross.

2. With her novels about American and Asian culture, Pearl S Buck became the first woman to win the Nobel Prize for Literature.

3. Cleopatra was the Queen of Egypt and the last pharaoh. She was around 18 when she became queen. Cleopatra was a shrewd politician, who spoke nine languages and during her reign, Egypt became closely aligned with the Roman Empire.

4. Marie Curie was a physicist who was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize — she actually won it twice — and the first woman to earn a doctorate in Europe. Her investigations led to the discovery of radioactivity as well as the element radium.

5. Amelia Earhart was the first woman to fly across the Atlantic Ocean, which ‘opened’ the skies to other women. In 1937, while attempting to become the first person to fly around the world, Earhart’s plane disappeared over the Pacific Ocean.

6. As the leader of India, the world’s most populous democracy, Indira Gandhi became an influential figure for Indian women as well as for others around the world.

7. A national hero in France, Joan of Arc led the resistance to the English invasion of France in the Hundred Years War. She believed that it was her divine mission to free her country from the English. She cut her hair, dressed in a man’s uniform, and led French troops to victory in the battle of Orleans in 1429.

8. As the designer of two of America’s most powerful monuments — The Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery, Alabama, and The Vietnam Memorial in Washington, DC, Maya Lin has distinguished herself as the most acclaimed site-specific architect of contemporary America. Because of her concern for environmental issues, she uses recycled, living or natural materials and focuses on sustainable and site-sensitive design solutions.

9. Founder of a religious group of nuns in Calcutta, India, Mother Theresa devoted her life to aiding sick and poor people throughout the world.

10. As an astronaut and researcher of advanced optical information systems, Ellen Ochoa flew her first shuttle mission in 1993 as a Mission Specialist with the Discovery crew, conducting atmospheric and solar studies in order to better understand the effect of solar activity on the Earth’s climate and environment. The first Hispanic woman to be named an astronaut, she has logged over 500 hours in space.