Nearly 150 years of women's progress is charted in this compilation of significant women's obituaries

With entries dating from 1872 to 2013, the latest in TheTimes' series of anthologies of its obituaries focuses attention on almost two centuries of groundbreaking achievements by more than 100 women, from around the world. Mary Sommerville (d. 1872), the pioneering mathematician and scientist with whose obituary the anthology begins, would have been astonished by what many of the other women remembered here achieved--not least one of the more prominent graduates of the Oxford college that was named Somerville after her--Margaret Thatcher (d. 2013). The collection also recalls the lives of actresses, aviators, botanists, doctors, British royalty, musicians, Nobel Prize winners, novelists, travelers, U.S. First Ladies, and many other prominent women.