4. France’s National Heroine
Joan of Arc, also known as the Maid of Orleans (1412 – 1431), is perhaps history’s most famous badass female warrior of all time. As a teenage girl during the Hundred Years War, she led French armies to victory against rampaging English invaders. Fighting at the head of her forces, she won a series of miraculous victories that revived the French national spirit, and turned the tide of the conflict.
Joan was born into a peasant family in Lorraine, and was noted for her piety since childhood. In her teens, she began seeing visions from a variety of saints, directing her to save France from English domination. At the time, France was exhausted, downtrodden and reeling from a series of humiliating defeats. The French crown was also in dispute between the French Dauphin, or heir to the throne, and the English king, Henry IV.