Jeanne d'Arc

"Joan was a being so uplifted from the ordinary run of mankind that she finds no equal in a thousand years." - Winston Churchill

St. Joan of Arc (French: Jeanne d'Arc, born c. 1412, Domrémy, Bar, France—died May 30, 1431, Rouen; canonized May 16, 1920; feast day May 30) National heroine of France, a peasant girl who, believing that she was acting under divine guidance, led the French army in a momentous victory at Orléans that repulsed an English attempt to conquer France during the Hundred Years’ War. Captured a year afterward, Joan was burned to death by the English and their French collaborators as a heretic. She became the greatest national heroine of her compatriots, and her achievement was a decisive factor in the later awakening of French national consciousness.