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Women That Left Their Mark Throughout History

Khalid Elhassan August 4, 2020 34 min

18. The Badass Warrior Sisters

Badass sisters Trung Nhi and Trung Trac (circa 12 AD – 43 AD) are Vietnam’s national heroines. Vietnam had been groaning under Chinese domination for about a century by the time the Trung sisters were born. Trung Trac, the older sister, was married to a Vietnamese nobleman who resisted Chinese hegemony, and objected to the heavy hand of a particularly oppressive Chinese governor.

For his troubles, Trung Trac’s husband was executed by the Chinese, as a warning to other Vietnamese. In response, the widow and her younger sister rose up in rebellion. The sisters led an independence movement and launched an uprising in 40 AD against Chinese domination of their country. Against great odds, they managed to break the Chinese yoke and established an independent Vietnamese state, which they ruled for three years.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.