Anna Eleanor Roosevelt was born in New York City on October 11, 1884. She married Franklin Delano Roosevelt on March 17, 1905, and was the mother of six children. She became First Lady on March 4, 1933, and went on to serve as Delegate to the United Nations General Assembly and Representative to the Commission on Human Rights under Harry S. Truman, and chairwoman of the Presidential Commission on the Status of Women under John F. Kennedy. She died on November 7, 1962, at the age of seventy-eight. [via HarperCollins]

Aside from being the longest-running First Lady of the United States, Eleanor Roosevelt was a champion of women’s rights, the civil rights of African and Asian Americans and the rights of World War II refugees. She prompted the US to join the United Nations and became one of its first delegates where she oversaw the drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.