Time: 1818
Mary Anning, exploring the shores of southern England, discovers the first complete skeleton of an ichthyosaur, or a 200-million-year-old marine reptile resembling a dolphin. It swam the oceans during the days of the dinosaurs. Mary, herself, was an amateur fossil collector far ahead of her time. She made major fossil discoveries for which she earned little credit or recognition during her day because women weren’t considered true “scientists” by the male scientists who thrived on their discoveries. Who was Mary? The very lady for whom the ditty “she sells seashells by the seashore” was coined.