Sirimavo Bandaranaike, Sri Lanka Fifty years ago, Sirimavo Bandaranaike was elected, becoming the first female

he ad of government the world had ever known. Her victory was so groundbreaking, no one knew what to call her. "There will be need for a new word," London's Evenin g News wrote the day after she was elected as Prime Minister in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). "Presumably, we shall have to call her a stateswoman." Bandaranaike assu med the role of party leader after her husband was assassinated by a Buddhist mo nk in 1959. When her party won the July 1960 election, she took the country's re ins and held them until 1965. She would serve as Prime Minister again from 1970 to 1977 and from 1994 to 2000. It was her daughter, who had become the country's first female President in 1994, who appointed her to her final term, though the position had become largely ceremonial at that point. She stepped down in April 2000 and died later that year on the very day she cast her ballot in the countr y's elections. Indira Gandhi, India She was the nation's daughter, brought up under the close watch of both her fath er, who was India's first Prime Minister after decades of British rule, and her country. The TIME magazine cover not long after her election in January 1966 rea d, "Troubled India in a Woman's Hands." Those hands led India for much of the ne xt two decades, through recession, famine, the detonation of the nation's first atomic bomb and a civil war in neighboring Pakistan that, under her guidance, sa w the creation of a new state, Bangladesh.

Golda Meir, Israel Once called "the only man in the Cabinet," Golda Meir was a formidable figure in Israeli politics. Tall, gaunt, blunt and determined, to the world she embodied the steely stubbornness of the Israeli spirit. "There is a type of woman," she o nce said, "who does not let her husband narrow her horizon." After an illustriou s political career, including service as Israel's Labor Minister and Foreign Min ister, among other high-level positions, she was called out of retirement at age 70 to lead her country as Prime Minister from 1969 to 1974. Margaret Thatcher, England Called Britain's Iron Lady, Margaret Thatcher was a woman with high standards, a short temper and a taste for whiskey. A suburban housewife turned one of the wo rld's most powerful women, she ruled from 1979 to 1990. Thatcher was Europe's fi rst female Prime Minister and the only British Prime Minister to win three conse cutive terms, giving her the longest spell in office since 1827. In her 11 years , she enabled the rise of the privatizing, capitalist state and saw the collapse of the Soviet Union; she has been called, for personality as much as achievemen t, the most renowned British political leader since Winston Churchill. Corazon Aquino, Philippines After the assassination of her charismatic husband, the pious Catholic widow Cor azon Aquino won over the public and overthrew the dictatorial regime widely blam ed for his murder. In a spectacle that added the phrase people power to the glob al lexicon, millions of supporters took to the streets to ensure Aquino's eventu al rise to the office of the President in February 1986. Though tested by severa l attempted military coups and other setbacks, she managed to preserve the democ racy her husband had died for. She was named TIME's Person of the Year in 1986 t he first woman to receive the designation since Queen Elizabeth II in 1952. Benazir Bhutto, Pakistan A daughter of the Pakistan dynasty, Benazir Bhutto followed her father into poli

tics and died because of it. Young and glamorous, she was a refreshing contrast to the male-dominated political establishment. She led her country as Prime Mini ster from 1988 to 1990 and again from 1993 to 1996 both times, she was dismissed from office by the President for alleged corruption, charges she steadfastly de nied and called politically motivated. She was assassinated in 2007 while campai gning to bring back democracy to the then military-ruled country; her husband, a lso tarnished with allegations of graft, is now President. Angela Merkel, Germany Angela Merkel is a rarity in German politics: she's the first Chancellor to have grown up in communist East Germany, the first female to lead and the youngest-e ver incumbent. She spent decades being underrated but never took it to heart. "Y ou could say I've never underestimated myself," Merkel told TIME in January 2010 . "There's nothing wrong with being ambitious." One hundred days after taking of fice in late 2005, a poll named her the most popular Chancellor in German histor y.