My wife is the most amazing woman I know.  She literally saved my life.     In her honor, here's some amazing women I don't know, some famous, some who should be better known.

Saoud Hamidi, removing her niqab after being forced to wear it at gunpoint by ISIL for 2 years.

Kate Sheppard, leader of the women's suffrage movement of New Zealand. New Zealand introduced Universal Suffrage in 1893, the earliest of any nation, and she appears on their ten dollar bill.

Joanna Palani, fought with the Kurdish Peshmarga, has a million dollar bounty on her head from ISIL, and is facing jail time fo rviolating a ban from Denmark on travel to Syria to help free her people.

Rosa Parks, being arrested for refusing to relinquish her seat

Madame Cure, first to win nobel prizes in two different scientific fields.

Liudmyla Mykhailivna Pavlychenko, the Soviet Unions deadliest female sniper

Malala Yousafzai, shot in the face for wanting an education. Nevertheless, she persisted.

An unkknown Japanese onna-bugeisha, female warriors that served their families as bushi alongside the samurai.

Valentina Tereshkova, first woman in space, 1963

Amelia Earhart

Komoko Kimurai, a Japanese suffragette in the 1920s.

Jane Goddall, primatologist and conservatist

Suu Kyi, jailed in Burma for 15 years for advocating democracy

Marina Ginesta, reporter and freedom fighter during the Spanish Civil War

Annie Lumpkins, freedom rider in the South in the 60s, at the Little Rock Jail

Milunka Savic, likely the most decorated female warrior in history. Wounded no less than 9 times, she was awarded the French Légion d’Honneur (Legion of Honour) twice, Russian Cross of St. George, British medal of the Most Distinguished Order of St Michael, Serbian Miloš Obilić medal. She was the sole female recipient of the French Croix de Guerre 1914–1918 with the gold palm attribute for service in World War I.

Irena Sudlerowa, the Angel of Warsaw, who smuggled 2500 jewish children to safety. Captured by the Nazis, tortured, and sentenced to death, she bribed her way into escaping, and returned to the ghetto to continue to save children.

Augusta Ada King-Noel, Countess of Lovelace, who worked on Babbage's Analytic Engine and realized it could be used for other purposes, creating the first algorhitmn for computer programming. She is widely considered to be the first computer programmer.

No picture extant, as she lived ~830-880 AD. Fatima Muhammad Al-Fihri Al-Quraysh, founder of the world's oldest university and oldest ongoing library in Fes, Morocco. It is now known as the University of Qarawiyyin.

Samarnda Braescu, the Queen of Heights, who was the world record holder for highest parachute jumper in the 1930s.

Henryka Krzywonos, head of the Gdansk Transportation Workers, one of the lead advocates of the Solidarity movement and anti-communist rallies in Poland. Beaten by authorities, she miscarried and was told she could never have children. She and her husband adopted 12 orphans to make a family.

Mary Harris Jones, aka Mother Jones. Labor activist during the coal mine strikes in the teens and twenties, she was once described in Congress as 'the most dangerous woman in America.' She helped prevent violence on several occassions, but was still jailed multiple times for standing up for workers rights.

Hedy Lamarr - glamorous actress, inventor of guidance system for torpedoes, whose implementation was later used as one of the fundamental technologies behind CDMA, wi-fi and bluetooth.

Rita Levi-Montalcin, Nobel Laureate in medicine for discovery of Nerve Growth Factor. NGF has numerous applications, including regulating the immune system. She was nominated 'Senator For Life' at the age of 91, an honorary position in the Italian Senate. She lived to the age of 103.

Khertek Amyrbitovna Anchimaa-Toka, the first non-hereditary female head of state. In April 1940 Anchimaa became the Chair of the Presidium of Little Khural, the head of state for the Tuvan People's Republic. In doing so she became the first female head of state in the modern era not to inherit the title. Tuva is a state on the Chinese Mongolian border.

EDIT: Part two here: http://imgur.com/gallery/cP9Td