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Three women defied sexist expectations to become some of the most important allies in WWII.

With the season finale of Marvel's spy show "Agent Carter" airing tonight (Feb. 24, 2015), take a look at some real badass spy women.

In "Agent Carter," Peggy Carter does a million awesome things, from using spy gadgets to fighting sleeper agents. Here are some of the real women she could have been based on.


1. Andreé Borrel

Like Peggy, Andreé knew her way around a parachute.

After a successful career of leading Allied troops out of occupied France via an underground railway to Spain, Burrell was one of the first women to parachute into France in September 1942 after joining the Special Operations Executive (SOE), a covert British organization. By March 1943, she had become second in command of the local network. That's badass.

2. Nancy Wake

Carter knows how to use lethal force when necessary. And so did Nancy Wake. Another member of the SOE, Nancy Wake led a spectacular life: By the time she was 30, she had run away from her home in New Zealand, lived in London and New York, had become a nurse, and finally had become a journalist. She was in Europe when the Nazis rose, witnessing and reporting on terrible things in the process.


In the war, before becoming a member of the SOE, among other things, she was a courier in the French Resistance, was the Gestapo's most wanted person for her part of the escape network, and earned the nickname "The White Mouse" for her ability to never be captured. Oh, and with her fellow resistance members, she killed 1,400 SS soldiers, NBD.

3. Virginia Hall

Could you imagine having six different identities to keep track of? Or driving a manual transmission ambulance through a war zone? Or having to take over your superior's courier duties because they were captured and the very same thing might happen to you? Could you imagine having to do that with one foot?


Virginia Hall did. After being put on the German's most wanted list, she, like Carter, went undercover. Unlike Carter, though, her undercover assignment was a lot less glamorous. She disguised herself, doing farm work in France while training resistance groups.

Badass.

A pitbull stares at the window, looking for the mailman.


Dogs are naturally driven by a sense of purpose and a need for belonging, which are all part of their instinctual pack behavior. When a dog has a job to do, it taps into its needs for structure, purpose, and the feeling of contributing to its pack, which in a domestic setting translates to its human family.

But let’s be honest: In a traditional domestic setting, dogs have fewer chores they can do as they would on a farm or as part of a rescue unit. A doggy mom in Vancouver Island, Canada had fun with her dog’s purposeful uselessness by sharing the 5 “chores” her pitbull-Lab mix does around the house.

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An English doctor named Edward Jenner took incredible risks to try to rid his world of smallpox. Because of his efforts and the efforts of scientists like him, the only thing between deadly diseases like the ones below and extinction are people who refuse to vaccinate their kids. Don't be that parent.

Unfortunately, because of the misinformation from the anti-vaccination movement, some of these diseases have trended up in a really bad way over the past several years.

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A woman looking at her phone while sitting on the toilet.


One of the most popular health trends over the last few years has been staying as hydrated as possible, evidenced by the massive popularity of 40-oz Stanely Quencher cups. The theory among those who obsess over hydration is that, when you pee clear, you’ve removed all the waste in your body and are enjoying the incredible benefits of being 100% hydrated. Congratulations.

However, according to Dr. Sermed Mezher, an NHS doctor in the UK, peeing clear isn’t always a sign of being healthy.

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Innovation

A student accidentally created a rechargeable battery that could last 400 years

"This thing has been cycling 10,000 cycles and it’s still going." ⚡️⚡️

There's an old saying that luck happens when preparation meets opportunity.

There's no better example of that than a 2016 discovery at the University of California, Irvine, by doctoral student Mya Le Thai. After playing around in the lab, she made a discovery that could lead to a rechargeable battery that could last up to 400 years. That means longer-lasting laptops and smartphones and fewer lithium ion batteries piling up in landfills.

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via PamTina_/Twitter

Pam's little brother is so sweet.

Pam has a little brother, who recently learned that he is actually her half-brother.

Of course, half-siblings are still very much siblings, but Pam's brother doesn't quite grasp the concept yet and seems upset about having to part with 50% of his sister.

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Jennifer Garner's Ziploc care package.

Homelessness has been on the increase in America since 2016 and the numbers exploded in 2020. On a single night in January 2020, there were more than 580,000 individuals who were without a home.

There are many reasons for the increase in homelessness and one of the leading causes is a lack of affordable housing across the country. Housing prices have been on a steady increase and, according to PBS, we are about 7 million units short of affordable housing in the country.

So what can the average person do about this human tragedy taking place in America’s streets? Some people who would like to help don’t feel comfortable giving money to homeless people, although experts in the field say that most of the time it is OK.

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