Adrienne Bolland

If you ever find yourself contemplating crossing the Andes in a rickety, 80-horsepower biplane held together by canvas, wire, and sheer spite, you can thank Adrienne Bolland for proving it was possible. In 1921, dressed in pajamas under layers of wool and newspaper, the French aviator became the first woman to fly over the mountain range between Argentina and Chile. When warned that her plane couldn't actually fly higher than the mountain passes, she simply flew through the valleys instead, dodging jagged peaks and freezing winds with the casual nonchalance of someone parallel parking a Renault.

Before her Andean triumph, Bolland had already made history as the first woman pilot hired by the legendary Caudron airplane company, not to mention pulling off a looping record of 212 loops in 72 minutes (presumably to test the tensile strength of her inner ear). Later in life, she became a fierce suffragist and joined the French Resistance during World War II, helping downed Allied airmen escape occupied France.

So where does the tribe fit into this daredevil's resume? Alas, nowhere. Adrienne Armande Pauline Bolland was born outside Paris to a Belgian writer father and a French mother, both of solidly gentile Roman Catholic heritage. Her only connection to the Chosen People was perhaps sharing the sky with other aviators who happened to be Jewish, though she was undeniably on the right side of history when fighting the Nazis.

Bolland was a trailblazer, an anti-fascist badass, and quite possibly possessed more raw nerve than any ten men of her era. But alas, we cannot claim her.