Joan of Arc

What the hell, thought the Dauphine, all's lost anyway. This farm girl who claims God told her to raise an army to rid France of England may be our last hope. "Go." So to Orleans she went and conquered. More victories all along the road to Reims. Altogether a good spring and summer for the 17 year old and for France, returned from her long slumber.

But capture came the following year. Trial, imprisonment and you know the rest. Burned alive once, burned dead twice more and her ashes thrown into the Seine. Not as a heretic or a witch, which a more civilized people would have done, but as a formidible foe. And as a woman who would dare to wear men's clothing. But such myopia! Create a martyr, lose a hundred years war.