Politics, science, sport, technology and literature... it's impossible to find an area where women haven't made a powerful impact.
政治、科学、体育、科技以及文学……要找到一个女性没有产生过重大影响的领域是几乎不可能的。

So the task of finding the female figure who has made the greatest contribution was always going to be a tough one.
所以要找出一位做出了最大贡献的女性是一项艰巨的任务。

But experts have finally narrowed it down – and named Marie Curie as the woman who did the most to change the world.
但是专家们终于把名单缩减，并把“对改变做出最大贡献的女性”的头衔赋予了玛丽·居里。

The scientist, whose discoveries in the field of radiation helped develop X-rays and cancer treatments, beat Margaret Thatcher, Princess Diana and Jane Austen in a poll by BBC History Magazine.
这位在放射性研究领域做出巨大贡献，并推进了X射线发展以及癌症治疗的科学家，在BBC历史杂志的投票评选中打败了玛格丽特·撒切尔，简·奥斯丁以及戴安娜公主，成为第一。

In second place was Rosa Parks, the civil rights movement activist who protested against racial segregation in the US by refusing to give up her seat on a bus to a white passenger. British suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst came third.
第二名的美国黑人民权行动主义者罗莎·帕克斯，曾通过拒绝在公交车上为白人乘客让座发起了抗议种族隔离的活动。英国妇女参政运动的领导者艾米琳·潘克斯特位居第三。

Curie was the first to win two Nobel prizes – one in physics and one in chemistry – and coined the word 'radiation'. 
居里夫人是第一位获取两项不同学科诺贝尔奖的科学家。她曾分别被授予诺贝尔物理学及化学诺贝尔奖，并创造了‘辐射’这一词。

She had a tough childhood in her native Poland, then under oppressive Russian rule. Her mother died when she was ten and she had to work as a young governess for six years.
居里夫人在俄罗斯帝国统治下的波兰度过了艰苦的童年。她的母亲在她仅仅十岁的时候去世，幼小的居里夫人不得不开始了六年的家教工作为自己谋生。

Going on to study at the Sorbonne in Paris, she met fellow physicist Pierre Curie, and the pair dedicated their lives to science.
前往巴黎的索邦进学的居里夫人邂逅了同为物理家的皮埃尔·居里。居里夫妇将他们的毕生献给了科学研究。

She began cracking the secrets of radioactivity in their primitive laboratory in a shed.
之后，居里夫人开始在用棚搭建的简陋实验室中探索放射性的秘密。

Curie helped fit X-ray machines to ambulances in the First World War while working for the Red Cross, and suffered leukaemia from long-term exposure to radiation. She died in 1934 aged 66.
在第一次世界大战期间，居里夫人在为红十字会工作的同时，帮助将X光机器安装在战地救护车上。1934年，由于长期接受辐射， 66岁的居里夫人死于再生不良性贫血。

Readers were given a list of 100 women to choose from, selected by experts in ten fields of human endeavour. 
读者们从专家们从对人类发展有贡献的十个领域选取的100位杰出女性中做出了自己的选择。


Some of the less familiar names include computer programmer Ada Lovelace, 19th-century philanthropist Angela Burdett-Coutts and crystallographer Rosalind Franklin, who helped crack the structure of DNA.
一些尚未被世人广知的候选人包括：计算机工程师阿达·洛芙莱斯，19世纪的慈善家安吉拉·伯德特·库茨，对DNA结构研究做出贡献的晶体学家罗莎琳·富兰克林。

Other figures in the top 20 include early feminist writer Mary Wollstonecraft, women's rights activist Josephine Butler and queen Eleanor of Aquitaine – one of the most powerful women of the Middle Ages.
其他在前二十名的女性包括：女权主义作家玛丽·沃斯通克拉夫特，女权积极分子约瑟芬·巴特勒以及在中世纪最有权力的女性之一：阿基坦的埃莉诺王后。

BBC History Magazine deputy editor Charlotte Hodgman said: 'The poll has shone a light on some truly extraordinary women from history.'
BBC历史杂志副编辑夏洛特·霍启曼说道： “这次的评选让历史上这些真正杰出的女性们再次绽放了光芒。”

（翻译：Jen）