News: The Queen, Margaret Thatcher, Malala, Princess Diana, Marilyn on list of 40 women who helped change the world

The Queen, Margaret Thatcher and J.K. Rowling have been celebrated in a list of the top 40 women who changed the world.

The list, which also includes Marilyn Monroe and 17-year-old girls' education activist Malala Yousafzai, was topped by pioneering Polish chemist Marie Curie, who was the first woman to win the Nobel Prize – and won it twice. 

British nurse Florence Nightingale came second and former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was third. 

Suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst and Mother Teresa completed the top five.

Royals fared well, with the Queen, Princess Diana, Queen Victoria, the Queen Mother and Elizabeth I all in the top 20.

The most admired quality of women in the list, which was compiled after a poll of 2,000 British adults by Sky Arts, was that they were not afraid to challenge the beliefs of their time. 

But two thirds of those polled said young women today lack inspirational figures and eight in ten felt youngsters idolise modern celebrities too much.

The poll was conducted to coincide with the launch of the second series of Sky Arts' Psychobitches, a sketch show with an all-star cast which will see women including The Mitford sisters and Florence Nightingale examined on the psychologist's couch.

FROM BENAZIR BHUTTO TO COCO CHANEL: THE GREATEST ROLE MODELS

1. Marie Curie

2. Florence Nightingale

3. Margaret Thatcher

4. Emmeline Pankhurst

5. Mother Teresa

6. Princess Diana

7. Queen Victoria

8. Anne Frank

9. Joan of Arc

10. Queen Elizabeth I

11. Rosa Parks

12. Queen Elizabeth II

13. Indira Gandhi

14. Amelia Earhart

15. Amy Johnson

16. J.K. Rowling

17. Marilyn Monroe

18. Jane Austen

19. Mary, Queen of Scots

20. Queen Mother 

21. Coco Chanel

22. Benazir Bhutto

23. Enid Blyton

24. Marie Antoinette

25. Helen Keller

26. Oprah Winfrey

27. Germaine Greer

28. Eva Peron

29. Hilary Clinton

30. Malala Yousafzai

31. Linda McCartney

32. Audrey Hepburn

33. Eleanor Roosevelt

34. Maya Angelou

35. Michelle Obama

36. Kate Middleton Duchess of Cambridge

37. Billie Jean King

38. Katharine Hepburn

39. Ingrid Bergman

40. Simone de Beauvoir