Looking over some of the accomplishments of women in the past several decades, it would be hard to believe they were once considered the weaker gender. Just recently Diana Nyad, a radio reporter in California, attempted to swim the approximately 90-mile stretch of water between Florida and Cuba — no shark cage, no stopping for sleep. Women have also scaled Mt. Everest; and a relay team of 22 women made the McVities Penguin Polar Relay from Ward Hunt Island, Canada to the North Pole.

On this day, May 27, in 1997, the first all-woman expedition reached the North Pole. Twenty members of the expedition, together with two female guides braved arctic temperatures that dropped into the -50F range to ski across the frozen Arctic Ocean.

The women were as diverse as can be. Some of them had barely any outdoor experience when they started training — like Ann Daniels, a mother of small triplets who had worked in banking before. Another one, Rosie Stancer, standing at only 5’ 3”, plans to be first the first woman to complete a solo trek to the North Pole in the coming years.