Today’s Google doodle honors 151 years from the birth of Nellie Bly, the legendary reporter, who had once pretended to be mentally ill in order to be put in a female psychiatric institution and report on her findings.

Elizabeth Jane Cochrane, commonly known as Nellie Bly, was born on May 5th, 1864 in Pittsburgh. Her enraged letter to a newspaper which had published a chauvinistic piece, became the launching point of her career, since the editor, impressed by her wording and style, offered her an editorial job immediately.

In 1887, and while she was employed in New York World, working side by side with Joseph Pulitzer, Bly pretended to be mentally ill so she would be placed in an institution for the mentally insane for a few days. Her report was so revealing that it contributed to the massive change of the operation of mental asylums and opened new roads to investigative journalism. For the next few years in her career, this dynamic woman would work tirelessly to reveal the truth and defend the weak and innocent.

In 1895, Bly married millionaire Rober Seaman, who was 40 years her senior. After his death, and having financial problems, she turned back to journalism, her great love. Nellie Bly died of pneumonia on January 27th 1922 in New York, aged only 57.