28 Badass Women Born in May

Martha Jane Canary, aka Calamity Jane.

Catherine the Great II, Empress of Russia, whose reign from 1762 to 1796 made her the longest-ruling female leader in Russian history.

Lily Allen, British pop singer.

Septima Clark, known as the "Grandmother of the Civil Rights Movement."

Audrey Hepburn, film actress, style icon and humanitarian.

Nellie Bly, pioneering journalist who also set a record for traveling around the world in 72 days.

Adele, British singer tied with Beyonce for the most Grammy Awards won in a single night for her album "21."

Eva Peron, outspoken First Lady of Argentina from 1946 to 1952, whom her adoring public called "Evita."

Ella Grasso, Connecticut's first female governor and the first U.S. woman elected governor who wasn't succeeding her husband.

Missy Franklin, U.S. swimmer and record-setting Olympic medalist.

Harriet Quimby, the first U.S. first American woman to become a licensed airplane pilot, and the first woman to fly across the English Channel in 1911 and 1912, respectively.

Martha Graham, known as the Picasso of modern dance and choreography.

Jacqueline Cochran, racing pilot who oversaw the U.S. Women's Air Force Service Pilots program during World War II.

Florence Nightingale, nursing pioneer.

Katharine Hepburn, iconic film actress and four-time Academy Award winner.

Dorothy Hodgkin, British chemist and Nobel Prize winner credited with developing protein crystallography.

Madeleine Albright, the first female U.S. Secretary of State from 1997 to 2001.

Adrienne Rich, influential poet, essayist, intellectual and feminist.

Tina Fey, comedy goddess who in 2010 became the youngest winner of the Mark Twain American Prize for Humor.

Lorraine Hansberry, author, poet and the first African-American woman to produce a Broadway play with "A Raisin in the Sun."

Cher.

Queen Victoria, British monarch from 1837 to 1876.

Patti Labelle, legendary singer known as the Godmother of Soul.

Brownie Wise, Tupperware party founder who helped put American women to work.

Stevie Nicks, legendary singer-songwriter and Fleetwood Mac member.

Sally Ride, America's first female astronaut.

Lauryn Hill, hip-hop singer-songer whose 1998 "Miseducation of Lauryn Hill" became the first hip-hop record to win an Album of the Year Grammy Award.

Rachel Carson, marine biologist, environmentalist and author of "Silent Spring."