Women’s History Hour

Among the women that history overlooked are Yelena Malyutina, Queen Muhumuza, Dame Janet Vaughan, Rosalind Franklin, Nazma Akter, Sizani Ngubane, Salika Amara, Mercedes Doretti and Morfydd Owen. This special edition of The History Hour explores the lives and achievements of women scientists, fighters, musicians and trade unionists. Yelena Malyutina served in the women's bomber regiment in the Soviet Airforce during World War II. She was hit by anti-aircraft fire but managed to land her plane and survive internal injuries. Queen Muhumuza was an anti-colonial rebel leader in modern-day Southern Uganda. She and her supporters fought the British, the Germans and the Belgians during the early 20th Century. Dame Janet Vaughan was a doctor and scientist, and expert in blood diseases who worked in London in the mid-20th Century. Rosalind Franklin was a chemist who contributed to the discovery of the DNA double-helix. Her colleagues James Watson and Francis Crick won the Nobel prize for medicine for this work after her death. Nazma Akter is a trade union organiser in the garments industry in Bangladesh. She remembers the terrible factory fire that first shocked her into union activism back in December 1990. Sizani Ngubane founded the Rural Women's Movement in South Africa 20 years ago to help protect women's access to vital farming land. Salika Amara is a French Algerian theatre director. She takes us back to the 1970s in Paris when she staged her first play about the lives of immigrant women. Mercedes Doretti is a forensic anthropologist who has dedicated her life to uncovering the evidence of human rights atrocities. Morfydd Owen was a young Welsh composer who died in 1918. Her compositions have been rediscovered and published, and performed for the first time. With guests Professor Jane Humphries of Oxford University and Dr Amrita Shodhan, from the School of Oriental and African Studies, London University. Image: Group of women, Credit: Thinkstock