When she heard she'd won the Nobel Peace Prize, she walked outside and planted a tree.
Wangari Maathai grew up in the highlands of central Kenya, flew to America on the Kennedy Airlift, and became the first woman in East and Central Africa to earn a doctorate. Her ex-husband called her too educated, too strong and too stubborn. Her government called her a mad woman. She started the Green Belt Movement, which says it planted more than 51 million trees, stopped a president's 60-storey skyscraper from swallowing Nairobi's Uhuru Park, and was beaten and arrested for standing up to power. In 2004 she became the first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize.