This episode Megan and Milena cover Margaret Hamilton, NASA’s first software engineer & Anne de Rochechouart de Mortemart, Duchess of Uzès, a wealthy aristocratic French sculptor

Margaret Hamilton

Look at this fierce lady. This is the face of a woman who made it possible for man to get to the moon. Margaret Hamilton is a brilliant software engineer that made the Apollo lunar landing possible, as well as developed her own math theory AND programming language.Wut.

Hamilton practically lived in her office. Look at that determination. LOOK. AT. IT.

Here it is, the famous picture that literally everyone has seen on Facebook of Hamilton standing next to the handwritten code that made the lunar mission so successful. It’s as tall as her. And now you can remember her name!

Here’s our girl representing MIT, the school that developed and hosted the Laboratory that Hamilton worked for while she was working on the Apollo missions.

Hamilton is featured in the Lego set, aptly named “Women of NASA.” She stars alongside Mae Jemison, Sally Ride, and Nancy Grace Roman. Stay tuned for those ladies!

And here is Hamilton receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom from the one and only Barack Obama. We are deceased.

Marie Adrienne Anne Victurnienne Clementine de Rochechouart de Mortemart, Duchesse d’Uzès

Also known as Anne

Anne looking badass in this portrait – hunting knife and whip at the ready. Photo by: Photo12/UIG via Getty Images

Anne is a type of rich you and I will never know. And not like buying name brand sugar rich, or Tesla rich, or ‘oh look at me I have a 401k with dental and vision insurance benefits’ rich, but ‘oldest noble French family that dates back to the 730’s’ rich. And yeah, having a long family line doesn’t make you rich, but the accumulation of centuries worth of power and money does help. Thankfully for us Annie was the type of woman, which upon her deathbed, had spent the majority of her wealth. Even luckier for us she used it on art and feminism. This episode we cover how badass she was spending that money, making the world a better place because of it.

Family History

What’s this? Oh just the family crest of the House of Rochechouart. The House motto? The Spirit surpasses the Matter

1863 painting by Léon Cogniet of Madame Clicquot and her granddaughter Anne, sole heir to her champagne fortune. In the top right corner? Just the family house…

Oh just Château de Boursault, the family house where Anne grew up

View of one of the rooms. How many in total I can’t say but I imagine the heating costs are a nightmare

Selected Sculptures

Sculpture of Saint Hubert, the patron saint of hunters, that Anne exhibited at the Salon of French Artists – a marble version of that was shown at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago

Crop of Anne working on her Monument to Joan of Arc, painting by Adolphe Demange

Entire painting by Adolphe Demange showing Anne at work on one of her monumental sculptures