International Womens Day Tribute Six

As the more enlightened of you might know the 8^th of March is International Women’s days. In honour of this, I will be writing a small article about 7 women whom I believe should be celebrated more for their achievements, and then posting one article each day in the week proceeding the 8^th of March. Now some of you might know a lot more about the subjects then I do, which is all well and good, remember these are women I believe should be more celebrated because I haven’t heard about them a lot. As the articles will be brief I ask you to look up more on these extraordinary women yourself.

Name: Valentina Tereshkova

Born: 6 March 1937

From: Russia

Should be known more for: First Woman in Space

When people generally discuss the space race, one name that usually doesn’t seem to get mentioned on many TV shows or films is that of Valentina Tereshkova. This is surprising considering that Tereshkova was the first woman in space, (20 years before the Americans put a woman in space), at the time she was also the youngest person in space and the 12^th overall human in to leave the confines of our planet, but more about that later.

Tereshkova was born in Maslennikovo, a small village in central Russia, Her father died as a soldier in World War two when Tereshkova was 2 years old. Miriam’s mother, who was a factory worker in a textile plant, had to raise Valentina and her 2 sibling on her own. Due to the financial constraints on the family Tereshkova was not able to start school until the age of 8 and from 16 had to continue via correspondence courses when she started working to help out her mother. At the age of 22 she joined the Yaroslavl Air Sports Club to pursue her interests in skydiving. Sergey Korolyov the genius Chief Engineer behind the Soviet Space programme after putting Yuri Gagarin in space came up with the idea of putting a woman in space. Tereshkova put her name down and was chosen for the programme. On the 16th June 1963 just over 2 years after Gagarin, Tereshkova became the first woman in space. Orbiting the Earth 48 times.

Upon returning to earth and after receiving top honours from the state. Tereshkova toured the world as a goodwill ambassador. She married Fellow Cosmonaut Andriyan Nikolayev and continued to work as an aerospace engineer, before entering politics and fighting for women’s rights within the Soviet Union.