Born on May 31

Mughal empress (1577–1645), wife of Emperor Jahangir, she was the only woman to wield real political power under the Mughal dynasty. An administrator, poet, and patron of the arts, she had coins struck in her own name and effectively governed the empire for several years.

Queen of the Malwa kingdom (Indore) from 1767 to 1795, she ruled with wisdom and justice. Widowed at 29, she refused sati and took charge of the state, personally leading her armies. She had hundreds of temples, wells, and roads built across India.

American poet, journalist, and essayist (1819-1892), regarded as the father of modern poetry in the United States. His collection *Leaves of Grass*, with its groundbreaking free verse, celebrates democracy, the body, and nature.

Chien-Shiung Wu was a Chinese-American experimental physicist, nicknamed "the First Lady of Physics." Her 1956 experiment disproved the law of conservation of parity, upending particle physics. Unjustly passed over for the Nobel Prize awarded to Lee and Yang for that discovery, she remains one of the most important figures in twentieth-century physics.