Georgia Broadwich

Georgia "Tiny" Broadwick was the first woman to jump from an airplane and
survive.

Born in Oxford, North Carolina on 8 April 1893. She was given the name 'Tiny' as she had a birth weight of just 3lbs. 

She made her first jump from a hot air balloon in a parachute designed by her adopted father on 28 December 1908. She was also the first person ever to jump into water from a seaplane. 

Between 1913 and 1922 she completed over 1,100 jumps. She invented the
ripcord and is the only female member of the Early Birds of Aviation
In 1914, she demonstrated parachutes to the U.S. Army, which at the time had
a small, hazard-prone fleet of aircraft. The Army, reluctant at first to
adopt the parachute, watched as Tiny dropped from the sky.

On one of her demonstration jumps, the static line became entangled in the
tail assembly of the aircraft, so for her next jump she cut off the static
line and deployed her chute manually, thus becoming the first person to jump
free-fall. This demonstrated that pilots could escape aircraft by using what
was later called a ripcord.

She died in 1978.