Corazon Cojoangco Aquino (born 1933) was the first woman to run for the office of the president of the Republic of the Philippines. The results of the 1986 election were so fraudulent that both Aquino and her opponent, the incumbent, Ferdinand Marcos declared victory. As a result of the election, the Filipino people rose in protest and Marcos was forced to flee the country and Aquino assumed the office of president.

Corazon Cojoangco Aquino was born on January 25, 1933, the sixth of eight children born to Jose Cojoangco of Tarlac, a prosperous province 65 miles northwest of Manila, the Philippines capital. The Cojoangcos were members of a wealthy landowning family prominent in politics.

Aquino attended an exclusive Catholic school for girls in Manila before travelling to America to attend Philadelphia's Raven Hill Academy. After earning a degree in French and mathematics from New York's Mount Saint Vincent College in 1953, she returned to...