Stories Of 5 Brilliantly Nasty Women From History

As everyone knows, men, their lives and achievements dominate our history books.

Of course, many men have done great and memorable things over the past several thousand years, but there were also many women responsible for all kinds of society-changing, revolution-starting, groundbreaking types of things. Women other than Queen Elizabeth and Joan of Arc. It's just that, well, historically, men have been in charge of dictating how things go. And that means they made sure we wouldn't forget them.

Luckily, there's a new book out to help those of us who spent our school years learning mainly about the men who've shaped our world. 100 Nasty Women of History by journalist Hannah Jewell gives us an alternative view of history and documents the women the textbooks accidentally forgot to cover. These "nasty" women are everything from pioneers in medicine, science and maths, to women who led armies and uprisings, to women who decided that getting drunk or having sex or speaking candidly when they were meant to sit in the house and be quiet would actually be a lot more fun. There's a whole section called "Women who punched Nazis".

Here, we've got five of the stories from 100 Nasty Women for your enjoyment. Click through the slideshow to read and pick up the book to see the rest.