Underestimate the colossal importance of this woman to twentieth century Argentine history at your own peril. Evita might have been dismissed as a beautiful starlet when she married labor leader Juan Peron, but revealed a passionate altruistic streak after he assumed the presidency: the new first lady gave beds, clothes, toys, eyeglasses, cash and even her own jewelry to the adoring poor who often waited days to meet her.

Detractors noted Evita's fondness for minks and fine clothes, and dismissed her charitable efforts as vote buying. (Or clientelism; I learned a new word.) They were outnumbered: the Vatican received forty thousand letters requesting Evita's canonization after she fell ill with uterine cancer. Evita died at thirty-three.

Biography.com has a nice introduction: