WOW2 – Mid October's Trailblazing Women and Events in Our History - 2020

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WOW2 – Mid October's Trailblazing Women and Events in Our History - 2020

by officebss for This Week in the War on Women

Community

(This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Saturday, Oct. 17, 2020 Saturday, Oct. 17, 2020 at 3:29:10pm PDT

March for Womens Lives - 2004 - Feminist Majority Foundation

WOW2 is a thrice-monthly sister blog to This Week in the War on Women. This edition covers women and events from October 12 through October 21.

The next WOW2, for Late October,
will post on Saturday, October 24.

The purpose of WOW2 is to learn about and honor women of achievement, including many who’ve been ignored or marginalized in most of the history books, and to mark moments in women’s history. It also serves as a reference archive of women’s history. There are so many more phenomenal women than I ever dreamed of finding, and all too often their stories are almost unknown, even to feminists and scholars.

September 15 to October 15 is Hispanic Heritage Month. The Smithsonian Latino Center has put out Nuestra América: 30 Inspiring Latinas/Latinos Who Have Shaped the United States, in both English and Spanish editions, written by Sabrina Vourvoulias, which includes the stories of 17 notable Hispanic American women.

THIS WEEK IN THE WAR ON WOMEN

will post soon, so be sure to go there and catch up
on the latest dispatches from the frontlines.

Many thanks to libera nos, intrepid Assistant Editor and STEM Researcher of WOW2. Any remaining mistakes are either mine, or uncaught computer glitches in transferring the data from his emails to DK5. And much thanks to wow2lib, WOW2’s Librarian Emeritus.

These trailblazers have a lot to teach us about persistence in the face of overwhelming odds. I hope you will find reclaiming our past as much of an inspiration as I do.

**Early October’s Trailblazing Women and Events in Our History**

_{Note: All images and audios are below the person or event to which they refer}

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October 12, 1799 – Jeanne Geneviève Labrosse becomes the first woman to jump from a balloon with a parachute, from an altitude of 2,953 feet (900 meters). In 1798, she had been the first woman to pilot a balloon solo. She would make many ascents and parachute descents in towns across France and Europe.

October 12, 1840 – Helena Modjeska born, Polish actress who emigrated to the U.S. in 1876, making her debut in San Francisco in 1877; renowned for her portrayals of Shakespeare’s tragic heroines, also played Nora in the first American production of Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House. In 1893 Modjeska was invited to speak to a women’s conference at the Chicago World’s Fair, and described the situation of Polish women in the Russian and Prussian-ruled parts of dismembered Poland. This led to a Tsarist ban on her traveling in Russian territory. She suffered a stroke in 1897, but recovered and continued to perform. In 1905, she gave a jubilee performance in New York, then toured in 1906 and 1907, before retiring, except for a few appearances as fundraisers for charitable causes. She died in Newport Beach, California in 1909, from Bright’s disease, a kidney disease.

October 12, 1891 – Edith Stein born a Jew, in Breslau, German Empire (now in Poland); worked as a nursing assistant in an infectious diseases hospital (1915-1916); received her doctorate from the University of Göttingen in 1916. She converted to Catholicism in 1922, and taught at a Catholic school. In 1932 she became a lecturer at the Catholic Church-affiliated Institute for Scientific Pedagogy in Münster, but she was forced to resign in 1933 because of the requirement of an “Aryan certificate” under the Nazi Restoration of the Professional Civil Service Law. In a letter to Pope Pius XI, she denounced the Nazis, and asked the Pope to openly denounce the regime "to put a stop to this abuse of Christ's name." Her letter was never answered, and it is uncertain if the Pope ever read it. Stein entered the Discalced Carmelite monastery in Cologne, and became Sister Teresa Benedicta, in 1934. For her safety, she was sent to the Carmelite monastery in Echt, Netherlands, in 1938. The monastery was undisturbed by the Nazis after they invaded the Netherlands in 1940, but in August, 1942, Stein and other Jewish converts were arrested by the SS, and sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp, where they died in the gas chamber, probably about a week later. She was beatified in 1987 by Pope John Paul II, and canonized by him in 1998. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross is one of the six patron saints of Europe, together with Benedict of Nursia, Cyril and Methodius, Bridget of Sweden, and Catherine of Siena.

October 12, 1904 – Jiang Bigzhi born, pen name Ding Ling, notable 20^th century Chinese author and activist, frequently at odds with the Chinese government, her works were banned in 1957 and she spent 5 years in jail during the Cultural Revolution, then was sentenced to 12 years of manual farm labor before “rehabilitation” in 1978; known for The Sun Shines Over Sanggan River, and I Myself Am A Woman: Selected Writings Of Ding Ling.

October 12, 1908 – Ann Petry born, black American novelist, short story and children’s book writer; her 1946 novel, The Street, is the first novel by an African American woman to sell over a million copies.

October 12, 1915 – WWI British nurse Edith Clavell is executed by a German firing squad for aiding Allied soldiers to escape from Belgium.

French propaganda card of Edith Clavell’s execution

October 12, 1916 – Alice Childress born, African American playwright, author and actress; Gold Through the Trees (her first professionally-produced play), Trouble in Mind, which won an Obie for Best Off-Broadway Play of 1955-56, the first Obie given to a black woman playwright; her YA book, A Hero Ain’t Nothin’ but a Sandwich won several awards.

October 12, 1923 – Jean Nidetch born, American entrepreneur, founder of Weight Watchers.

October 12, 1923 – Domna Samiou born, Greek singer and musicologist, collected and recorded demotika, traditional Greek songs; in 1981, the Domna Samiou Greek Folk Music Association was founded to preserve and promote Greek traditional music.

YouTube Video

October 12, 1930 – Milica Kacin Wohinz born, Slovenian historian, noted for her seminal study of the forceful Italianization of the Slovene minority in Italy between 1918 and 1943, and the anti-Fascist resistance of the Slovenian and Croatian people from the 1920s into the 1940s. Because her research topic was the history of an ethnic minority and not the history of working class, her work was subjected to Marxist criticisms during Slovenia’s socialist period (1945-1991), beginning in the 196os. She was the Co-Chair, with Italian Co-Chair Sergio Barole, of the bilateral Slovenian-Italian Cultural-Historical Commission (1993-2000).

October 12, 1944 – Angela Rippon born, English broadcast journalist and writer; the first woman journalist who became a permanent presenter on the BBC national television news – there were several other women who appeared on newscasts earlier but she was the first with a long-term position, working from 1974 to 2002 on several different programmes.

October 12, 1956 – Catherine Holmes born, Australian judge; current Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Queensland since 2015, the first woman to hold the position; appointed to the court in 2000; a founding member of Queensland’s Women’s Legal Service in 1984.

October 12, 1957 – Clémentine Célarié born, French comedian, actress, and writer; known for her one-woman show, Madame sans chaînes, and a play, Les grandes occasions.

October 12, 1957 – Annik Honoré born, Belgian journalist and music promoter; co-founder of the record labels Les Disques du Crépuscule and Factory Benelux. She left the music business in 1985, and worked as a secretary in the Research and Innovation department of the European Commission in Brussels. She died of cancer in 2014.

October 12, 1958 – Maria de Fátima Silva de Sequeira Dias born, Azorean author, historian, and professor in the Department of Management and Economics at the University of the Azores; authority on the history of the Azores, an autonomous region of Portugal, and of the history of Judaism in the Azores.

October 12, 1966 – Brenda Romero born, American video game designer and developer, best known for her work on the Wizardry series, and The Mechanic is the Message.

October 12, 2014 – A federal judge overturned Alaska’s constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. Alaska’s ban on same-sex marriage was the first in the nation. Judge Timothy M. Burgess ruled the amendment unconstitutional, saying that denying same-sex couples the right to legally marry “sends the public a government-sponsored message that same-sex couples and their familial relationships do not warrant the status, benefits, and dignity given to couples of the opposite sex.”

This 2020 Demonstration in Ketchikan led to a new city ordinance prohibiting discrimination against LGBTQ people

October 12, 2019 – A discouraging report was published in the Wall Street Journal on women’s progress in the fields of Healthcare, Business and finance, and Computer and math. In healthcare, women represent 77% of the workforce, but men outnumber women 2-to-1 in getting the first promotion into management, and only 13% of CEOs are women. In Business and finance, women are 52% of the workforce now, which is a smaller percentage of women in the field than in the late 1990s. Worst of all, in the Computer and math fields, there has been a steady decline since 1984 when women were 37% of the workforce – women are now only 24% those employed in field.

October 12, 2020 – In Bangladesh, cabinet announced that a bill mandating that anyone convicted of rape would be punished with death or “rigorous imprisonment” for life had been approved. It is an amendment to the women and children repression prevention bill, which stipulated a maximum life sentence for rape cases, according to Law and Justice Minister Anisul Huq. The amendment came after a series of violent gang rapes, and a wave of protests across the country. Amnesty International point out that the problem in Bangladesh was not the severity of punishment for rape, but a failure of the courts to bring convictions in rape cases, and the victims’ fear of coming forward. Naripokkho, a women’s rights organisation, found that in six districts between 2011 and 2018, only five out of 4,372 cases resulted in a conviction. Overall, only 3.56% of cases filed under the Prevention of Oppression Against Women and Children Act have ended up in court, and only 0.37% have resulted in convictions.

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October 13, 1161 – Eleanor of England born, one of the eight children of Eleanor of Aquitaine and Henry II, King of England. Her parents arranged her marriage King Alfonso VIII of Castile to secure the southern border of the Aquitaine, while Alfonso was seeking an ally in his struggles with Sancho VI of Navarre. It proved to be a successful partnership. Eleanor bore 12 children, but five of them died in childhood. In Eleanor’s marriage treaty, and in the first marriage treaty for her first-born daughter Berengaria, Eleanor was given direct control of many lands, towns, and castles throughout the kingdom. She was almost as powerful as Alfonso, who specified in his will in 1204 that she was to rule alongside their son in the event of his death, including taking responsibility for paying his debts and executing his will. Troubadours and sages were regularly present in their court due to Eleanor's patronage. In 1179, she took responsibility to support and maintain a shrine to St. Thomas Becket in the cathedral of Toledo. She also created and supported the Abbey of Santa María la Real de Las Huelgas, which served as a refuge and tomb for her family for generations, and its affiliated hospital. Eleanor died in October 1214, just 26 days after Alfonso, at the age of 53.

October 13, 1613 – Luisa de Guzmán born, daughter of the Spanish Duke of Medina-Sidonia; she married João IV, the Portuguese Duke of Braganza in 1633. Regarded as “ambitious, willful and ruthless,” she was the stronger personality in the marriage, and was the main influence behind her husband’s acceptance of the Portuguese throne during Portugal’s revolution against Habsburg Spain in 1640. When João died in 1656, she was named Regent of the Kingdom during her son Afonso’s minority, but remained as regent even after he reached the age of 19, because a childhood illness had left him partially paralyzed and mentally unstable. Luisa defended the independence of Portugal and controlled the government with a strong hand, hoping her youngest son Pedro would take the crown when he came of age. Luisa was politically astute and mainly responsible for the diplomatic success of the new alliance with England. Her daughter Catherine married Charles II of England. Luisa is also credited with the organization of the armies that in the following years would completely ensure Portuguese independence through the victories in the Portuguese Restoration War. In 1662, Afonso took power with the help of his favorite, the Count of Castelo Melhor, and had his mother removed to a convent. She died in the convent in 1666 at age 52.

October 13, 1862 – Mary Kingsley born, English ethnographic and scientific writer and explorer; wrote and lectured about Sierra Leone, Angola, Gabon, the Congo River and Cameroon after traveling in West Africa in 1893 and 1894-1895; author of Travels in West Africa and West African Studies.

October 13, 1901 – Edith Spurlock Sampson born, American lawyer and judge. She earned a law degree from Loyola in Chicago, then worked for the Illinois social services department as a referee, and in private practice. In 1950, President Truman named her as an alternate delegate to the UN, the first black American woman to be credentialed to represent the U.S. at the United Nations. In 1962, she successfully ran for associate judge of the Municipal Court in Chicago, the first black woman judge in Illinois. In 1966, she became an associate judge for the Circuit Court of Cook County, where most of the cases were housing disputes involving poor tenants. She retired from the bench in 1978, and died in 1979.

October 13, 1905 – British Suffragettes Christabel Pankhurst and Annie Kenney storm a political meeting in Manchester, England, demanding to know if the Liberal government will grant women the right to vote. When police forcibly remove them from the meeting, Pankhurst spits on one officer, and both women are arrested. They refuse to pay the fine, and go to jail, stirring up press attention. This is often regarded as the first militant action of the Suffragette movement. On October 17, Kenney writes to her sister Nell that she has been released from Manchester’s Strangeways Prison, where there were “over one hundred people waiting” for her. She was given a “lovely bouquet of flowers” “from the Oldham Socialists.” She also reports that over 2,000 people had attended a protest meeting on her behalf the night before. “Manchester is alive I can assure you.” Her letter was discovered in the 21st century, languishing in the British Columbia Archives, by historian Lyndsey Jenkins, who was doing research on Kenney and her family. Annie’s letter wound up in Canada because Nell emigrated there with her husband in 1909. The letter was filed under Nell’s married name, so its significance was overlooked.

October 13, 1919 – Jackie Ronne born, American explorer; first woman to work as a member of an Antarctic expedition (1947-1949); the Ronne Ice Shelf is named for her.

October 13, 1923 – Rosemary Anne Sisson born, English author, playwright and television scriptwriter; The Excise Man, and scripts for: The Six Wives of Henry VIII (1970), Elizabeth R (1971), Upstairs, Downstairs (1972–75) and The Duchess of Duke Street.

October 13, 1924 – Moturu Udayam born, Indian politician and women’s rights activist; Secretary General of the Andhra Pradesh Mahila Sangham, a women’s collective in the southeastern Indian state (1974?-1992), and vice president of the All India Democratic Women’s Association (1981-2001); she and her husband were communists, and went underground twice, 1940-1945 and 1949-1951. During these exiles, she organized the first all-women Burrakatha group (a traditional form of story-telling previously only performed by men) which was part of an anti-fascist campaign. She was also the first woman in Andhra Pradesh known to ride a bicycle.

October 13, 1925 – Margaret Thatcher born, Conservative MP and Party Leader, dubbed the “Iron Lady.” She was the first woman to lead a major British political party, and the first female UK Prime Minister (1979-1990). She was against Trade Unions and in favour of privatization of state utilities, and did little to advance women other than herself. However, she did push for passage of the UK Environmental Protection Act 1990, supported the founding of the Hadley Centre for Climate Research and Prediction, as well as establishment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and UK ratification of the Montreal Protocol on preserving the ozone. In 1989, Thatcher made a speech at the United Nations calling for a global treaty on climate change.

October 13, 1934 – Nana Mouskouri born, Greek singer and politician; became a UNICEF spokesperson in 1993, and served as a Greek deputy to the European Parliament (1994-1999).

October 13, 1950 – Mollie Katzen born, American chef, vegetable expert and cookbook author; noted for The Moosewood Cookbook, The Enchanted Broccoli Forest, and the children’s cookbooks Pretend Soup and Honest Pretzels. Katzen was inducted into the James Beard Cookbook Hall of Fame in 2007.

October 13, 1958 – Maria Cantwell born, American Democratic politician, U.S. Senator (Washington state, 2001 to present); served in the U.S. House of Representatives (WA,1987-1995). She is an advocate for supporting public education, for greater access to higher education, and a champion for scientific research on reduction of ocean acidification.

October 13, 1961 – Rachel De Thame, English Horticulturist, garden expert and BBC 2 presenter on Gardener’s World, and Small Town Gardens; co-host for the BBC’s annual coverage of the Chelsea Flower Show.

October 13, 2011 – Helle Thorning-Schmidt, the new Prime Minister of Denmark (2011-2015), presents her new coalition government; she is Denmark's first woman Prime Minister.

October 13, 2015 – Playboy magazine announces it will stop publishing photographs of fully nude women, beginning with a redesigned issue in March 2016. Chief Executive Scott Flanders explains, "You're now one click away from every sex act imaginable for free. And so it's just passé at this juncture." The magazine’s circulation had fallen from 5.6 million in 1975 to 800,000 in 2015, while its web traffic quadrupled after it eliminated nudity in August 2014.

Right: Playboy magazine, October 2015 issue — Left: Playboy, March 2016 issue
Doesn’t seem like much of an improvement

October 13, 2019 – Atatiana Jefferson, a 28-year-old black woman, was fatally shot in her home by a white Fort Worth police officer in Texas. She was in the house playing video games with her 8-year-old nephew. Her family demanded to know why the officer fired through a window without announcing himself as police. "There was no reason for her to be murdered," family attorney Lee Merritt said after viewing police bodycam video of the shooting. Officers went to the house because a neighbor requested a welfare check after seeing the front door was open. The Fort Worth Police Department said the officer saw someone near a window and “perceived a threat.” The case drew more public outcry for police accountability, and a Texas grand jury in December 2019 indicted the former Fort Worth police officer for murder.

October 13, 2019 – The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced that Esther Duflo, a French-American economist, would share the Nobel Prize in Economics with her husband Abhijit Bannerjee and colleague Michael Kremer “for their experimental approach to alleviating global poverty,” which involves dividing this huge issue into smaller, more manageable, questions, such as what would be the most effective ways to improve education outcomes. The trio used field experiments in the 1990s to test interventions on improving school results in Kenya. Banerjee and Duflo followed with similar research in other countries, often working with Kremer. "Our approach is to unpack the problems one by one, and examine them as scientifically as possible," said Duflo, the second woman, and youngest person (age 45 at the time), to win the prize.

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October 14, 1404 – Marie of Anjou born, Queen consort (1422-1461) of Charles VII, King of France. She presided over the council of state during the king’s absence, with the power as regent to sign acts as the “lieutenant of the king.” Though she had her husband’s trust, gave birth 14 times, and 6 of her children lived into adulthood, Charles was in love with his mistress, Agnés Sorel, whom he formally acknowledged, the first time a French King had so elevated his mistress, and Marie was eclipsed at court. She endured this humiliation with quiet dignity, and busied herself with her children, a menagerie of pets, needlework, and acts of religious piety. She had a musical chapel with two chaplains who were composers, and an astrologer in her retinue. But in 1450, Agnés Sorel died, possibly from poisoning by the mercury that was in the cosmetics of the day, after giving birth to a fourth daughter who also died. The 15^th century chronicler Robert Blondell composed the allegorical Treatise of the "Twelve Perils of Hell" for Queen Marie in 1455. Marie became Queen Dowager when Charles died in 1461, and her son was crowned Louis XI. He granted her the Chateau of Amboise and the rich income from Brabant. During the winter of 1462-1463, Marie, at age 58, made a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, in spite of bad weather and poor roads. There has been speculation that she was a secret ambassador to Spain for her son, given the political situation at the time. She became ill and died in November of 1463, worn out by her difficult journey to Spain.

October 14, 1630 – Sophia of the Palatinate born, who became Electress consort of Hanover (1692-1698) and Duchess consort of Brunswick-Lüneberg (1679-1698). She was the second cousin of Anne, Queen of England, Scotland and Ireland. Under the Settlement Act of 1701, she became the heir presumptive to Anne’s throne, but she died two months before she would have become queen, so her son became King George I of Great Britain and Ireland. Sophia was a friend and admirer of the German polymath Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, and their substantial correspondence was eventually published in the 19^th century. It revealed Sophia to be well-read, with exceptional intellectual ability and curiosity. She bore 7 children who reached adulthood. Sophia lived to the age of 83, a very advanced age for the day.

October 14, 1861 – Julia A. Ames born, American journalist, editor and temperance reformer; associate editor of the Women’s Temperance Publishing Association’s Union Signal and a volunteer at “The Anchorage,” a mission in Chicago for outcast women run by the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU). She died at age 30 of typhoid pneumonia in 1891.

October 14, 1888 – Katherine Mansfield born as Kathleen Mansfield in New Zealand, noted primarily for short stories and essays; Bliss and Other Stories and The Critical Writings of Katherine Mansfield.

October 14, 1893 – Lillian Gish born, legendary American screen, stage and television actress, director and writer. She was a pioneer in film whose career spanned 75 years, from silent short subjects in 1912, to co-starring with Bette Davis in the 1987 film The Whales of August. She is credited with developing fundamental techniques for performing before the motion picture camera. In the early days of silent films, she found costumes and props, wrote dialogue cards, edited film, directed, and performed all her own stunts, nearly losing her life shooting the famous scene in 1920’s Way Down East, lying on a piece of real ice in a real freezing river about to plunge over a real waterfall; The Movies, Mr. Griffith, and Me is her autobiography, written with Ann Pinchot. Because of her close association with D.W. Griffith (he cast Gish in her first starring role in the 1912 silent, An Unseen Enemy), and her appearance in his infamous 1915 film, The Birth of a Nation, she has become a controversial figure in recent times.

October 14, 1894 – Victoria Drummond born, first British woman marine engineer and first woman member of the Institute of Marine Engineers, served at sea during WWII as an engineering officer in the British Merchant Navy, frequently cited for bravery under fire; retired after making 49 voyages in her 40-year career.

October 14, 1897 – Alicja Dorabialska born, Polish chemist; her family moved to Moscow during WWI, from 1915 to May, 1918, then returned to Warsaw. She became an assistant in the Institute of Physical Chemistry at Warsaw University of Technology in 1918. In 1925, Maria Skłodowska-Curie came to Warsaw for the foundation stone ceremony for the Radium Institute. They met at a Polish Chemical Society banquet honoring the Nobel laureate. Madame Curie invited Dorabialska to Paris, where she studied under Curie. Dorabialska was the first woman appointed as an assistant professor in the department of physical and inorganic chemistry of Lviv Polytechnic in 1934. She spent most of WWII with her mother and sister in Warsaw, which saved her from being shot, as many of her colleagues were. She secretly hid a Jewish woman in her apartment, and also continued teaching in secret. In 1945, Dorabialska was promoted to full professor at Lviv Polytechnic, and served as dean of the chemistry department (1945-1951).

October 14, 1906 – Hannah Arendt born in Germany, notable American political theorist who escaped from Germany after being arrested and briefly imprisoned by the Gestapo for being Jewish in 1933. She went to Switzerland, then France, and came to America in 1941 on a visa illegally issued by Hiram Bingham, who gave about 2,500 Jewish refugees unauthorized visas. Known for her books The Origins of Totalitarianism, and The Human Condition.

October 14, 1908 – Ruth Hale born, American playwright, director, producer, and actress; she moved from Utah to California, and co-founded the Glendale Centre Theatre with her husband James. Hale wrote several plays for the venue, including Handcart Trails, How Near the Angels, and A Choice Land, which she also produced and directed. Ruth and James Hales opened arena-style theatres in Utah and Arizona.

October 14, 1909 – Dorothy Kingsley born, American screenwriter for film, radio and television; was a “script doctor” at MGM, sometimes uncredited, she often re-wrote the ‘books’ (plots and dialogue) for MGM musicals, including Kiss Me Kate, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers and Pal Joey.

October 14, 1938 – Dame Elizabeth Esteve-Coll born, British librarian and museum director; first woman appointed as a director of a national arts collection, at the Victoria and Albert Museum (1987-1994); Vice-Chancellor of the University of East Anglia (1995-1997), resigned because of advancing multiple sclerosis.

October 14, 1938 – Shula Marks born, South African history professor and author; School of Oriental and African Studies of the University of London; a consultant for the World Health Organization (WHO, 1977-1980), and co-author of a monograph for WHO on Health and Apartheid. Marks is currently working on the public health campaign against the spread of HIV/AIDS in South Africa. Honored in 2002 with the Distinguished Africanist Award by the African Studies Association of the UK. Noted for her books on South Africa, including Not Either an Experimental Doll: The Separate Worlds of Three South African Women.

October 14, 1949 – Katha Pollitt born, American feminist poet, essayist, and critic; She writes frequently on abortion rights, racism, welfare reform, feminism, and poverty. Noted for her essay collection, Reasonable Creatures: Essays on Women and Feminism,and Pro: Reclaiming Abortion Rights.

October 14, 1955 – Iwona M. Blazwick born, British art critic and lecturer; Director of the Whitechapel Art Gallery since 2001; supporter of young artists’ work; author of numerous monographs and articles on contemporary artists, art movements, and art history.

October 14, 1956 – Jennell Jaquays born as Paul Jaquays, American game designer; noted for work on The Dark Tower module for Dungeons & Dragons, and on conversions of Pac-Man and Donkey Kong to video game system versions. More recently, worked on the Age of Empires series and Quake III Arena. She is the creative director for The Transgender Human Rights Institute in Seattle, and campaigned for passage of “Leelah’s Law” to outlaw “conversion therapy” of LGBTQ youth.

October 14, 1979 – 200,000 people participate in the first Washington DC March for Lesbian and Gay Rights.

October 14, 1991 – Burmese (Myanmar) opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi named as winner of the Nobel Peace Prize.

October 14, 2017 – Producer Harvey Weinstein is expelled by AMPAS (the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences) after multiple news sources publish dozens of accusations of sexual harassment and rape.

October 14, 2019 – Margaret Atwood and Bernardine Evaristo were announced as the joint winners of the 2019 Booker Prize. "We were told quite firmly that the rules state that you can only have one winner," Peter Florence, the chair of the judges, said. However, "the consensus was to flout the rules and divide this year's prize to celebrate two winners." Atwood won for The Testaments, the sequel to 1985's The Handmaid's Tale; she had also received the literary award in 2000 for The Blind Assassin. Bernardine Evaristo won for Girl, Woman, Other, becoming the only black woman to win the Booker Prize. "I hope that honor doesn't last too long," she said.

October 14, 2020 – The Mathematical Association of America announced it is partnering with AwesomeMathGirls.org, The D.E.Shaw Group, Jane Street Capital, and Two Sigma to expand its American Mathematics Competition (AMC) Awards and Certificate Program as part of their commitment to closing the gender gap in mathematics, by recognizing young women for their achievements on the AMC exams. The exams are given to middle school and high school students. The 20 top-scoring young women will each receive a $1,000 scholarship, and the 580 top-scoring women will receive Certificates of Excellence. "Dr. Mirzakhani continues to be an inspiration for many aspiring mathematicians around the world. It is my sincere hope that with this award, we can continue to motivate the next generation of female mathematicians." - Meera Desai, founder of Awesomemathgirls.org.

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October 15, 1701 – Saint Marie-Marguerite d'Youville born, French Canadian widow who in 1737 founded, with three women, the Order of Sisters of Charity of Montreal, better known as the Grey Nuns, to provide a home for the poor of Montreal. At the beginning, they were mocked for their efforts, and called “les grises” which translates as “the grey women,” but in slang meant “drunken women.” They raised money and expanded the home. By 1744 their association had been accepted as a Roman Catholic religious order. In 1747, they were granted a charter to operate the General Hospital of Montreal, which was in ruins and heavily in debt. They brought the hospital back into service, but it was destroyed by fire in 1765. On the downside, Marie d'Youville and her order were slave holders, buying and selling Indian slaves, and using British prisoners of war. The prisoners mostly worked in the hospital, and on rebuilding it after the fire, but probably had a better chance of survival as slave labor than in the prisons, notorious for unchecked pestilence, where their comrades were held. Marie d'Youville died in 1771. In 1959, she was beatified by Pope John XXIII, who called her "Mother of Universal Charity", and was canonized in 1990 by Pope John Paul II. She is the first person born in Canada to be elevated to sainthood by the Roman Catholic Church.

October 15, 1793 – French Queen Marie Antoinette is put on trial by the Revolutionary Tribunal for everything from misappropriating Treasury funds to accusations of incest with her son Louis Charles.

October 15, 1830 – Helen Hunt Jackson born, American author, poet and activist for improved treatment of Native Americans by U.S. Government; author of Ramona, and A Century of Dishonor.

October 15, 1831 – Isabella Bird born, intrepid British explorer, writer, naturalist and photographer; co-founder with Fanny Jane Butler of the John Bishop Memorial Hospital in Srinagar. In 1890, she was the first woman to be elected Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. Bird was also elected to the Royal Photographic Society in 1897. Her many books include: Unbeaten Tracks in Japan; A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains; the 2-volume Journeys in Persia and Kurdistan; and Among the Tibetans.

October 15, 1860 – Grace Bedell, 11 years old, writes a letter to presidential candidate Abraham Lincoln, telling him he would look better if he grew a beard.

October 15, 1880 – Marie C. C. Stopes born, Scottish palaeobotantist and poet; advocate of birth control, women’s rights, and eugenics. In 1902, she earned her doctorate at Munich University‎, for work on fossilized plants. She became the first woman academic on the faculty of the University of Manchester. Stopes was the editor of Birth Control News, and author of Married Love, a controversial but influential sex manual published in 1918; she opposed abortion, arguing that it would not be needed if contraceptives prevented unplanned pregnancies. Her campaign was largely responsible for the founding of Britain’s first family planning clinic in Holloway, north London, without publicity in March 1921. The clinic offered a free service to married women only. Its aim was two-fold: first, to reach the poor and give them access to birth control, and second, to gather scientific data about contraception. Her reputation was later hurt by her eugenic concerns of “impending racial darkness.”

October 15, 1906 – Alicia Patterson born, American publisher, founder, and editor of Newsday. In 1954, Newsday won a Pulitzer Prize for Public Service, and became the country's largest suburban magazine.

October 15, 1906 – Victoria Spivey born, record producer, songwriter, 1920s blues singer. She was a member of the all-black cast of the 1929 film Hallelujah.

YouTube Video

October 15, 1922 – Agustina Bessa-Luís born, Portuguese writer and executive; director of the daily newspaper, O Primeiro de Janeiro, (1986-1987); director of the D. Maria II National Theatre in Lisbon (1990-1993); noted for her novel, translated as The Lands of Risk.

October 15, 1924 – Marguerite Andersen born in Germany, Canadian French-language author, noted for Le Figuier sur le toit, which won a 2009 Trillium Award.

October 15, 1943 – Penny Marshall born, American actress, producer and director, noted for directing Big, the first film directed by an American woman to gross over $100 million USD in the U.S.; other films include Awakenings; A League of Their Own; and Renaissance Man.

October 15, 1948 – Dr. Frances L. Willoughby becomes the first woman doctor in the regular U.S. Navy.

October 15, 1951 – I Love Lucy premieres on CBS-TV; co-produced by and starring Lucille Ball.

October 15, 1954 – Julia Yeomans born, British theoretical physicist and academic; active in the fields of soft condensed matter and biological physics; Professor of Physics at Oxford.

October 15, 1955 – Emma Chichester Clark born, British children’s book author and illustrator, known for her Blue Kangaroo series.

October 15, 1957 – Mira Nair born in India, Indian-American filmmaker; she came to the U.S. when she was 19, on a full scholarship to Harvard University, where she performed in plays, but chose film directing over acting, photography or writing, because she likes working collaboratively with people and using all her talents. Her production company, Mirabai Films, produces documentaries and films for international audiences on Indian culture. Known for her feature films Salaam Bombay!; Mississippi Masala; Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love; The Namesake; and Monsoon Wedding, which won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 2001. In 2016, she directed Queen of Katwe, a biographical feature about Phiona Mutesi, a girl from the slums of Kampala, Uganda, who became a Woman Candidate Chess Master in 2012.

October 15, 1994 – Europa Donna, the European Breast Cancer Coalition, founded by affiliated groups from 47 European countries, becomes the sponsor of Breast Health Day.

October 15, 2007 – U.N. General Assembly adopts a resolution designating October 15 as International Day of Rural Women.

October 15, 2019 – When Endzela Dvali came to the UK from eastern Europe to stay with a family friend she had no idea that her virginity would be sold to a stranger for £5,000. She was drugged and raped repeatedly over three weeks by a Russian man old enough to be her father. It had been arranged by the woman she was staying with, who had taken all Dvali’s personal belongings and locked her in the house. When the man left, Dvali went downstairs, where the woman procurer was passed out drunk on the sofa. She broke a window and escaped. A passerby saw Dvali crying, gave her some money, and pointed her toward the nearest police station. Four years later, she lives in a flat provided by the Amari project, which offers up to a year of supported accommodation in London for survivors of sexual trafficking and exploitation while they recover and develop skills needed to transition into the general workforce. The project is part of a strategic partnership of Solace Women’s Aid and Commonweal Housing, with funding from London Councils. The applicants have already maintained a first stage tenancy, then go through an assessment process, and are deemed ready to live independently, either on their own, or with their children up to 2 years old.

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October 16, 1384 – Jadwiga is crowned “King” of Poland, the first woman monarch of the Kingdom of Poland, and rules from 1384 until her death in 1399; after her marriage, she is co-King with her husband, Jogaila, Grand Duke of Lithuania, a heathen who converted to Catholicism in order to marry her; she becomes a very successful mediator between his quarreling kinsmen, and uses her persuasive skills to convince the people of Ruthenia to switch their loyalty from Hungary to Poland.

October 16, 1678 – Anna Waser born, Swiss painter; her father promoted her talent by paying for a tutor, then sending her to Bern to study with Joseph Werner, a leading Swiss painter of the time. She was his only girl student during her four years of study there. When she returned home to Zurich, members of her family’s wide social circle commissioned portraits, and her work began to be known. In 1699, at age 21, Waser was appointed by Count Wilhelm Moritz von Solms-Braunfels as court painter to his castle Braunfels an der Lahn in Hessen. But her promising career was ended when she had to stay in Zurich to take care of her ailing her mother, and run the family household. She died in 1714, at the age of 35, from injuries caused by a fall.

October 16, 1793 – Marie Antoinette, convicted of depleting the national treasury, conspiracy against the security of the State, and high treason for intelligence activities for the enemy, is guillotined in Paris.

LovisCorinth-MarieAntoinetteon_Her_Way_to_the_Guillotine_1894.jpg — **Marie Antoinette goes to the guillotine — by** Lovis Corinth

October 16, 1831 – Lucy Stanton born, free-born African American abolitionist and women’s rights supporter; she became the first black woman to complete a four-year course of study at an American college when she graduated in 1850 from a ‘Ladies Literary Course’ (women took fewer classes and weren’t eligible for Bachelor of Arts degrees) at Oberlin College. Her step-father was an active participant in Cleveland Ohio’s branch of the Underground Railroad, so there were often fugitives hidden at her home as she grew up. He also founded the Cleveland Free School which Stanton attended; after college, she worked as a free school principal, a teacher, and a seamstress. In 1866, she was sent by the Cleveland Freedmen’s Aid Society to teach newly freed slaves, first in Georgia, and then in Mississippi. Later, she moved to Tennessee. In 1900, she moved to Los Angeles. In 1904, she was a founder of the Sojourner Truth Industrial Club to assist the large numbers of black working women seeking better employment opportunities in California.

October 16, 1847 – The novel Jane Eyre, written by Charlotte Brontë, is released in London as Jane Eyre, An Autobiography, “edited by Currer Bell.” It revolutionized prose fiction by revealing Jane’s moral and spiritual growth and her emotional conflicts through an intimate, first-person narrative. Many of the reviews at the time were negative, some condemning it as “anti-Christian,” in violation of “every code human and divine” and fostering “rebellion at home.”

October 16, 1869 – Girton College, Cambridge founded, England’s first residential college for women. Women were originally only granted titular degrees – the title of a Bachelor or Master of Arts, but not full rights – they couldn’t vote in the university Senate, sit on committees, or use the library, museums, or laboratories of Cambridge.

October 16, 1895 – Marguerite Rawalt born, lawyer, president of the National Federation of Business and Professional Women (1954-1956), supporter of the ERA and the entire feminist agenda, particularly including the word “sex” in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

October 16, 1903 – Cecile de Brunhoff born, French storyteller and classical pianist, creator of the original Babar story, which began as a bedtime story for her children. Her husband, painter Jean de Brunhoff, illustrated and wrote down the story for a picture book, then went on to create six more Babar books. Her son Laurent de Brunhoff, continued the series, writing and illustrating dozens of additional Babar books.

October 16, 1908 – Olivia Ensor Coolidge born in Britain, American author of historical books for Young Adults, many about Ancient Greeks and Romans; and biographies for adults, including one on Edith Wharton.

October 16, 1916 – Margaret Sanger opened the first U.S. birth control clinic in Brooklyn, New York. Nine days later she was arrested. When Sanger is convicted of illegally distributing contraceptives, the trial judge declares that women “do not have the right to copulate with a feeling of security that there will be no resulting conception.”

October 16, 1919 – Kathleen Winsor born, American journalist and author; best known for her racy historical novel Forever Amber.

October 16, 1925 – Angela Lansbury born, actress with a 70+-year career in theatre, film and television from Gaslight (1944) to Driving Miss Daisy (in the 2014 Broadway production). She is involved with Abused Wives in Crisis, which combats domestic abuse, and with other organizations that rehabilitate drug users, or help those with HIV/AIDS.

October 16, 1928 – Mary Daly born, American radical lesbian feminist philosopher, academic and theologian; taught classes in theology, feminist ethics, and patriarchy at the Jesuit-run Boston College (1967-1999). She was threatened with dismissal in 1968 after publication of her first book, The Church and the Second Sex, but was given support by the then all-male student body, and later was granted tenure. Ironically, she would later be forced out after refusing to admit male students to her advanced women’s studies classes, which violated university policy and its interpretation of Title IX, even though she did allow men in her introductory class, and tutored male students separately who wanted to take advanced classes; noted for her second book, Beyond God the Father.

October 16, 1941 – Emma Nicholson born, Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne, British politician; originally a Conservative, switched to Liberal Democrat as a Member of the European Parliament for South East England (1999-2009); in 2016, switched back to Conservative Party; Executive Chairman of the AMAR Foundation, which works to rebuild and improve the lives of disadvantaged communities in war-torn areas.

October 16, 1948 – Alison Chitty born, British theatre production designer, and set and costume designer; she was resident designer at the National Theatre for eight years. Chitty was honored with two Olivier Awards for Best Costume Design: in 2001 for Remembrance of Things Past at the Royal National Theatre, and in 2007 for The Voysey Inheritance, at the Royal National Theatre.

Designs for ‘King Lear’ — Allison Chitty

October 16, 1948 – Hema Malini born, Indian actress, writer, director, producer, dancer and Bharatiya Janata Party (Hindu nationalist) politician; elected to the Lok Sabha (lower house of India’s parliament) since 2014; she had previously been appointed as a Member of the Rajya Sabha (upper house 2003-2009); recipient of the Padma Shri, the Government of India’s fourth-highest civilian honour, for contributions to Indian cinema. She is a supporter of PETA India, and has campaigned to ban horse carriages from Mumbai’s busy streets, and to ban jallikattu (bull fighting).

October 16, 1956 – Marin Alsop born, American conductor and violinist; musical director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra since 2007, the first woman to hold the position with a major American orchestra.

October 16, 1956 – Meg Rosoff born, American Writer based in London; noted for her first novel How I Live Now, which won the Guardian Prize, and the Printz Award, and her second novel, Just in Case, winner of the Carnegie Medal for the best children’s book. Her novel Picture Me Gone was a finalist for the 2013 National Book Award for Young People's Literature.

October 16, 1959 – Tessa Munt born, British Liberal Democrat politician; Member of Parliament for Wells (2010-2015); Somerset County Hall councilor since 2017; member of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.

October 16, 1960 – Terri J. Vaughn born, American actress, producer, and director; currently playing the recurring character of Melisse on the television series Greenleaf. She is the co-founder with Cas Sigers-Beedles of Nina Holiday Entertainment, which has produced several independent films, and Vaughn’s debut project as a director, #DigitalLivesMatter.

October 16, 1965 – Kang Kyung-ok born, South Korean Manhwa (cartoon) artist; noted for It’s Two People and Narration in Seventeen.

October 16, 1977 – Laura Wade born, English playwright; noted for her plays Limbo, 16 Winters, Colder Than Here and Breathing Corpses.

October 16, 1978 – Wanda Rutkiewicz becomes the first Polish woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest.

October 16, 1978 – Adrianne Frost born, American comedian, actress and author; best known for her work on The Daily Show in 2002, and her 2006 book, I Hate Other People’s Kids. She is a 7-time champion of the Manhattan Monologue Slam, and Grand National Champion for 2010.

October 16, 2012 – Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney inadvertently created a new tone-deaf catchphrase, "binders full of women," during a debate discussion about gender equality in the workplace. Romney was describing his big effort to recruit women when he was governor of Massachusetts, even receiving "binders full of women" qualified to serve on his team. The phrase immediately went viral on social media. He did have nine women in his cabinet – out of a total of 27 appointees.

October 16, 2019 – NASA unveiled two spacesuits designed to be worn by the first woman to walk on the moon. The next-generation suits were made for the Artemis programme, which aims to land the first woman and next man on the moon by 2024. A bulky, mostly white prototype with blue and red arms was demonstrated by Kristine Davis, a spacesuit engineer at the Johnson Space Center. The garment, called an exploration extravehicular mobility unit (xEMU), is designed for exploring the lunar surface, specifically the Moon’s south pole – target for NASA’s next crewed lunar landing. The other new spacesuit is a new orange pressure suit, the Orion crew survival system, which will be used by astronauts when they launch into space on the Orion capsule and return to Earth. The focus on spacesuits designed to fit a more diverse crew came after plans for the first all-female spacewalk had to be scrapped earlier in 2019 because there were not enough spacesuits available that fit the women.

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October 17, 690 – Wu Zetian ascends to the throne of the Tang dynasty, proclaiming herself ruler of the Chinese Empire; she is the sole officially recognized Empress Regnant of China in over two millennia.

October 17, 1538 – Irene di Spilimbergo born, Italian Renaissance poet and painter who studied with Titian; the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC has a portrait attributed to her of her sister Emilia. She is also known for some poetic elegies, which were published two years after her death, as part of an anthology edited by Dionigi Atanagi, of works by contemporary cultural figures. She died in Venice at the age of 19.

October 17, 1720 – Maria Teresa Agnesi Pinottini born, Italian composer, harpsichordist and singer; often performed at the gatherings for the lectures of her more famous sister, Maria Gaetana Agnesi, the mathematics and language prodigy, but also performed in Vienna and Dresden, cities which were more favorable toward women’s education and independence than her home city of Milan at the time. She enjoyed the patronage of Holy Roman Empress Maria Theresa, and Maria Antonia, Electress of Saxony.

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October 17, 1864 – Elinor Glyn born, provocative English author, screenwriter, and producer-director; her novels It and Three Weeks were scandalous at the time; she wrote Hollywood silent film screenplays for Gloria Swanson and Clara Bow – Glyn gave Bow her ‘It Girl’ title. Briefly in 1929, she had her own production company in Britain, Elinor Glyn Ltd, but it failed, and she went back to writing novels.

October 17, 1868 – Sophia Hayden Bennett born, American architect, first woman to receive an architecture degree from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, designed the Woman’s Building at the 1893 World Columbian Exposition in Chicago.

1893 Women's Building, Chicago — Sophia Hayden Bennett

October 17, 1882 – Haritina Korotkevich born, during the Russo-Japanese War, she disguised herself as a man using the name Khariton Korotkevich, and worked as a brakeman on the Trans-Siberian Railway to reach Port Arthur, in order to be reunited with her husband. She revealed that she was a woman to the officer in charge, who heard her story sympathetically, and allowed her to take the oath of fidelity and don a uniform to serve as a soldier in the Imperial Russian Army. At first, she was not taken seriously, but she proved herself to be an able fighter, and her courage inspired the men around her. When her husband was wounded, she spent three weeks caring for him at the field hospital, then returned to the fighting, assigned by the captain to be a messenger, carrying orders and reports between the commander and the front lines. When the Japanese launched a massive offensive in October 1908, she was carrying a report of causalities and an urgent request for reserve troops and more ammunition, when she was killed by a Japanese howitzer shell as she was leaving the regiment’s dugout. Korotkevich was posthumously awarded the Cross of St. George, given for undaunted courage and distinction in battle.

October 17, 1895 – Doris Humphrey born, American dancer and choreographer; along with Martha Graham and Katherine Dunham, she was one of the second generation of pioneers in modern dance. Many of her works were annotated, so Humphrey’s choreography continues to be taught, studied, and performed. Her theories on the fundamentals of movement were very influential, especially her idea of Fall and Recovery as the center point of movement, which she described as "the arc between two deaths." It was based on the change in the center of gravity, then balance and recovery. Humphrey’s theory was that moving away from center should be followed by an equal adjustment to return to center to prevent a fall. The more dramatic the movement, the more dramatic the recovery should be.

October 17, 1900 – C. C. “Cox” van Asch van Wijck born, Dutch artist and sculptor; after schooling in America, she studied with sculptor Toom Dupuis, who was the docent of Koninklijke Academie van Beeldende Kunsten (Royal Academy of Fine Arts in the Hague). She was married in 1930, and set up her atelier in the gatehouse of her new home. In 1932, she died in childbirth, a month before her 32^nd birthday.

October 17, 1901 – Emma Gambia Alvarado born, Costa Rican educator; as a student who excelled in reading and mathematics, she was given a scholarship to the Escuela Normal de Costa Rica, founded in 1914, as a secondary school to train teachers. She graduated as a teacher in 1920, then continued her studies at Ohio University in the U.S., with a bachelor’s degree in Education Sciences in 1939, and a Master of Arts in 1940. She was a founding member of the Costa Rican Asociación Nacional de Educadores (National Association of Educators), and was elected as its second president in 1947. She earned a PhD in Philosophy from Ohio University in 1951. After her persistent campaigning for an education department, in 1958 she inaugurated the Education building at the University of Costa Rica. In 1960, she contributed to the creation of the Escuela Nueva Laboratorio (primary laboratory), brokering an agreement between the University of Costa Rica and the Ministry of Public Education. She promoted her ideas for an integral and democratic education system in books, talks and seminars, and at national, Latin American, European and American conferences. She also wrote readers and textbooks for Costa Rican children, including My home and my Village; Active Reading; and Paco and Lola and The Little House on the Mountain. In 1998, Gambia Alvarado became the first woman whose likeness appeared on a Costa Rican banknote, the ten thousand colones bill.

October 17, 1910 – Esther Wier born, American novelist and children’s author; The Loner won the 1964 Newbery Award for young adult fiction.

October 17, 1910 – Marina Núñez del Prado born, notable Bolivian sculptor who used native Bolivian woods as well as granite, onyx, alabaster and basalt. Much of her work was inspired by art of Bolivia’s Aymara people and other indigenous peoples, and she campaigned for their civic and human rights. Her house and studio are now the Núñez del Prado Casa Museo, governed by the Foundation Núñez del Prado, and designated as a Bolivian National Cultural Site.

October 17, 1913 – Marian Marsh, born as Violet Krauth in Trinidad, American film actress and environmentalist. Her family moved to Boston, Massachusetts during WWI, then to Hollywood, California in 1923. Her older sister became a contract player, using the name Jean Fenwick. Marsh attended Hollywood High School. In 1928, she began taking speech and movement lessons from silent screen actress Nance O’Neil, and was soon under contract at Pathé Studios, making short subject films under the name Marilyn Morgan. In 1930, after parts in the Howard Hughes film Hell’s Angels and the Eddie Cantor musical Whoopee!, she was signed by Warner Brothers, and her professional name was changed to Marian Marsh. One of her best-known roles was as Trilby in the 1931 film, Svengali, co-starring with John Barrymore. Her career had ups and downs, and she retired in 1959. She moved to Palms Desert, California, where she founded Desert Beautiful, a non-profit, all-volunteer conservation organization to promote environmental and beautification programs in the 1960s. She died in Palm Desert in 2006, at the age of 93.

October 17, 1917 – Adele Stimmel Chase born, American painter, sculptor and ceramicist; noted for faience figures and ceramic tiles.

October 17, 1918 – Rita Hayworth born as Margarita Cansino in New York, legendary American screen star, actress and dancer. She was a lifelong Democrat and an active member of the Hollywood Democratic Committee. She campaigned for Franklin Roosevelt during the 1944 election. When her diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease was made public in 1981, the disease was little-known, and she became its “public face,” not only raising awareness of the disease, but helping to destigmatize a condition that many families tried to hide out of embarrassment.

October 17, 1919 – Violet “Vi” Milstead Warren born, Canadian aviator, she earned her private and commercial aviation licenses early in 1940; noted for being the first Canadian woman bush pilot, and one of four Canadian women who served in the British Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA) during WWII. With over 600 hours of flight time in 47 different types of aircraft during the war, she was also the longest-serving Canadian woman. After the war, she returned home and worked as a flight instructor and bush pilot. She was a member of the Canadian Aviation Hall of Fame, the Order of Canada, and the Bush Pilots Hall of Fame.

October 17, 1921 – Priscilla Langford Buckley born, American journalist, author, and editor. She attended Smith College, where she and Betty Friedan became close friends, and graduated with a degree in history in 1943. She worked for United Press (1944-1948 in New York and 1953-1956 in Paris). In between, she worked for the CIA. She started working at her father’s conservative publication, National Review, in 1956, then became managing editor in 1959 when Suzanne La Follette retired. She served as managing editor until 1985, then as a contributor until 1999. Her 2001 memoir, String of Pearls, covered her Paris years. In 2005, she published Living It Up with National Review. She died at age 90 in 2012.

October 17, 1936 – Sathima Bea Benjamin born, South African singer-songwriter and record producer. She left South Africa in 1960, and was in exile for almost 45 years. Benjamin sang with Duke Ellington’s orchestra at the 1965 Newport Jazz Festival; she founded her record label, ekapa, in 1979; received the Order of Ikhamanga Silver Award from South African president Thabo Mbeki for “excellent contribution as a jazz artist” and “contribution to the struggle against apartheid.” She died in Capetown in 2013 at age 76.

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October 17, 1943 – Vilma Socorro Martinez born, Mexican American lawyer and civil rights crusader. After she graduated from Columbia School of Law in 1967, she joined the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, and defended a number of poor and minority clients. In 1970, she became an equal opportunity counselor for the New York State Division of Human Rights, where she created new rules and procedures governing the rights of employees. She was the first woman U.S. Ambassador to Argentina (2009). Socorro Martinez also was one of the first women on the board of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF).

October 17, 1946 – Drusilla Modjeska born in England, Australian author and anthology editor; known for her novels Poppy, and Stravinsky’s Lunch.

October 17, 1956 – Mae Jemison born, American physician, holder of a degree in chemical engineering, and NASA astronaut (1987-1993). Since 1993, Director of the Jemison Institute for Advancing Technology in Developing Countries, which researches, designs, implements and evaluates cutting-edge technology in a real-life context. She was the first African American woman in space, aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavor in 1992, as a Science Mission Specialist, conducting space-sickness experiments and research on bone loss in zero gravity. Jemison also served as a doctor in the Peace Corps in West Africa (1985-1987).

October 17, 1964 – Margarita Liborio Arrazola born, Mexican PRI (Partido Revolucionario Institucional) politician; Deputy of the Legislature of the Mexican Congress representing Oaxaca (2009-2012).

October 17, 1968 – Alejandra Ávalos born, Mexican singer-songwriter, actress, dancer, record producer, and philanthropist; she has been a supporter of causes including AIDS and cancer research, anti-poverty campaigns, children with disabilities, and animal rights.

October 17, 1974 – Ariel Levy born, American writer and author; staff writer at The New Yorker magazine, and previously a staff editor at New York magazine. She is the author of a memoir, The Rules Do Not Apply, and of Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture, a critique of America’s highly sexualized culture, in which women are objectified, objectify one another, and are encouraged to objectify themselves.

October 17, 2014 – Ángel Donesteve, a Madrid councilor on the city’s Family and Social Affairs Committee dismissed a high-ranking employee, implying that she wasn’t showing “complete dedication” to her work after she became a mother. Madrid Mayor Ana Botella told Donosteve that she was "offended as a mother and a mayor" by his explanation of his decision to fire the woman who had run a legal services department for 10 years before taking the post of district secretary, the third most important position in the local administration. Botella ordered Donosteve to reinstate the woman. Donosteve had claimed, a year after the employee had given birth, that "she would rather balance her personal and family life, but I need maximum performance and as many work hours as possible” even thought the employee had not asked for a reduction in her hours or any other measure to balance work and family life. Donesteve made a public apology. A few days later he resigned, after the woman declined the offer to reinstate her.

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October 18, 1523 – Anna Jagiellon born, the last Polish ruler of the Jagiellonian dynasty; Queen of Poland and Grand Duchess of Lithuania from 1575 to 1587, after the death of her brother, King Sigismund II Augustus, the last Jagiellon male, in 1572. She had never married, but now her hand was sought by pretenders to the Polish throne. She chose Stephen Báthory of Transylvania, who was ten years her junior, and they were married in 1576, when she was 52 years old. He was crowned as co-ruler with her, but it was a dynastic arrangement, and they were never close. Her husband was preoccupied with the Livonian War against the Tsardom of Russia, so she took on local administrative matters, and oversaw several notable construction projects, including reconstruction of the Royal Castle, and a city wall in Warsaw to protect access to the Sigismund Augustus Bridge which crossed the Vistula River, the longest wooden crossing in Europe at the time, and one of the greatest engineering works of the Polish Renaissance. When Báthory died in 1586, Anna could have made a claim to continue as sole ruler, but chose instead to promote her nephew Sigismund III Vasa as the next ruler (1587-1632), establishing the House of Vasa on the Polish throne until 1668. Anna died in Warsaw in 1596 at age 72, the last Jagiellon.

Anna Jagiellon in coronation robes — by Martin Kober

October 18, 1587 – Lady Mary Wroth born, English Renaissance poet, one of the first woman to achieve an enduring reputation in literature; wrote Urania, the first known/surviving prose romance written by an English woman, the sonnet sequence Pamphilia to Amphilanthus, and Love’s Victory, a pastoral closet drama (reader’s theatre piece for private performance).

October 18, 1775 – Poet Phillis Wheatley, a black slave in Boston, is freed upon the death of her master John Wheatley.

October 18, 1874 – Christine Murrell born, English medical doctor, first woman member of the British Medical Association's Central Council; woman suffragist, chair of the WWI Women’s Emergency Corps; president of the Medical Women’s Federation (1926-1928). Murrell graduated from the London School of Medicine for Women with an MBBS in 1899, and was the second woman to serve as a house physician at London’s Royal Free Hospital. In 1903, she established a private practice in Bayswater with her friend Elizabeth Honor Bone. She earned an MD in psychology and mental diseases from the University of London in 1905. From 1907, she led an infant welfare clinic run by the St Marylebone Health Society at Lisson Grove for 18 years. In 1923, she published a series of lectures she had given, under the title Womanhood and Health.

October 18, 1897 – Isabel Briggs-Myers born, American author and co-creator with her mother, Katherine Cook Briggs, of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), a Jung-based psychological questionnaire to determine a person’s dominant perception function – sensation, intuition, feeling or thinking – and decision-making process, designed to evaluate “normal” populations.

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October 18, 1900 – Evelyn Berckman born, American author of detective fiction, Gothic horror novels and non-fiction British naval history, who began writing after semi-paralysis ended her career as a pianist; The Beckoning Dream, The Heir of Starvelings, and Creators and Destroyers of the English Navy.

October 18, 1900 – Sarah Bavly born in the Netherlands, Dutch-Israeli nutritionist, researcher and author; came to British Mandatory Palestine in 1926, became the chief dietician for Hadassah hospitals, and head of Hadassah’s school lunch program; founder and dean of the College of Nutrition and Home Economics in Jerusalem (1953-1965) ); her book Tzunatenu (Our Nutrition) was a standard elementary-school textbook for decades.

October 18, 1920 – Melina Mercouri born, award-winning Greek actress and singer; activist against the Greek military junta which overthrew the government in 1967 – the junta revoked her Greek citizenship. After the junta's fall in 1974, she became a founding member of the Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK), a centre-left political party; Mercouri was elected in 1977 as Member of Parliament for Piraeus B; served as Greek Minister of Culture (1981-1989).

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October 18, 1921 – Beatrice Worsley Canadian born in Mexico, first woman to earn a Ph.D. in what is now called computer science, from Cambridge (Alan Turing was one of her advisors); female computer scientist in Canada; wrote the first program to run on EDSAC, and co-wrote the first compiler for Toronto’s Ferranti Mark 1.

October 18, 1923 – Jessie Mae Hemphill born, American country blues singer-songwriter.

October 18, 1929 – Celebrated in Canada as “Persons Day”: The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council overrules the Supreme Court of Canada in Edwards v. Canada when it declares that women are to be considered “Persons” under Canadian law, establishing both the citizenship rights of Canadian women, and the “living tree doctrine,” that a constitution is organic and must be read in a broad and liberal manner so as to adapt it to changing times. The Lord Chancellor, Viscount Sankey, wrote that “exclusion of women from all public offices is a relic of days more barbarous than ours,” and that “to those who ask why the word should include females, the obvious answer is why should it not.”

October 18, 1929 – Violeta Chamorro born, Nicaraguan publisher of La Prensa newspaper and politician; President of Nicaragua (1990-1997).

October 18, 1930 – Flora Fraser born, the Lady Saltoun, Scottish peer; holder of a lordship of Parliament since 1979, one of the 90 hereditary peers chosen by election to remain in the House of Lords after the House of Lords Act 1999 removed 662 hereditary peers. Lady Saltoun retired from the House of Lords in 2014. She is the Chief of the Name and Arms of Clan Fraser, since a 1984 decree of the Court of the Lord Lyon, and is also head of the Scottish lowland family the Frasers of Philorth.

October 18, 1930 – Esther Hautzig born in Vilna, Poland (now Vilnius, Lithuania), American writer known for The Endless Steppe, winner of the first Sydney Taylor Book Award in 1968, which is an account of her life in Siberia after her family’s deportation there following the Soviet conquest of eastern Poland in 1941.

October 18, 1931 – “Ien” Isabella Dales born, Dutch PvdA Party politician; Minister of Internal Affairs (1989-1994); Mayor of Nijmegen (1987-1989); Member of Parliament (1982-1987); State Secretary for Social Affairs (1981-1982); Rotterdam Director of Social Services (1977-1981).

October 18, 1941 – Martha Burk born, American political psychologist, syndicated columnist and feminist; money editor for MS magazine, and current head of the Corporate Accountability Project for the National Council of Women’s Organizations, which started the 2003 Women on Wall Street investigation into sex discrimination at companies associated with Augusta National, which led to two women becoming members of the all-male golf club in 2013; Chair of the National Council of Women’s Organizations (2001? -2005), an umbrella organization for over 100 women’s organizations.

**Martha Burk at Augusta National protest**

October 18, 1948 – Ntozake Shange born as Paulette Williams, American playwright, poet, and black feminist, best known for her Obie Award-winning play for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf.

October 18, 1950 – Wendy Wasserstein born, American playwright, noted for The Sisters Rosenzweig, and The Heidi Chronicles, winner of a Tony Award for Best Play, and the 1989 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

October 18, 1951 – Terry McMillan born, American author, noted for Waiting to Exhale and How Stella Got Her Groove Back.

October 18, 1955 – Rita Verdonk born, Dutch politician, originally with the People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (2002-2007), then an independent (2007-2008), and founder and leader of the Proud of the Netherlands Party (2008-2011); Parliamentary leader in the House of Representatives (2007-2010); Member of the House of Representatives (2007-2010); Minister of Justice (2006).

October 18, 1956 – Martina Navratilova born in Czechoslovakia, Czech-American tennis player, considered one of the all-time best women tennis players; advocate for LGBT rights, freedom of speech, and animal rights; she is a supporter of several charities which benefit underprivileged children.

October 18, 1972 – Mika Ninagawa born, Japanese photographer and director of films and music videos; winner of the 2006 Ohara Museum of Art Prize; known for intense color photographs of flowers, goldfish and landscapes.

October 18, 1977 – Flavia Colgan born in Brazil, Brazilian-American Democratic strategist; political contributor to MSNBC.

October 18, 1984 – Esperanza Spalding born, American jazz bassist and singer; musical prodigy, played violin in the Chamber Music Society of Oregon at age 5; Four-time Grammy Award winner, including first jazz artist to win Best New Artist in 2011.

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October 18, 1988 – Tessa Schram born, Dutch director and actress; noted for writing and directing the 2014 film Painkillers.

October 18, 2007 – Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto returns to Pakistan, after eight years of living abroad; while her cavalcade is making its way through a crowd in Karachi, two bombs explode, killing 149 people, and injuring 402 more, but Bhutto is uninjured.

October 18, 2019 – NASA astronauts Christina Koch and Dr. Jessica Meir successfully completed the first all-woman space walk after working seven hours outside the International Space Station to repair a failed power control unit. It was the fifth spacewalk for Koch, but the first for Meir, who is now the 15^th woman to walk in space. Christina Koch is an electrical engineer, while Jessica Meir’s doctorate is in marine biology.

**Jessica Meir on left, and Christina Koch on right**

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October 19, 879 – Shulü Ping born, Empress Yingtian of the Khitan Liao dynasty; in 916, her husband Yelü Abaoji, after consolidating his power over the Khitan tribes, declared himself Emperor Taizu and Shulü Ping Empress. She has described by contemporaries as brave, resolute and full of strategies, often advising the Emperor in military matters. Once, when he was away fighting the Dangziang tribe, and the Empress was left in charge, two Mongolian tribes decided to raid the Khitan. The Empress heard of their plans, and had her army ambush them, a crushing defeat for the tribesmen. When the Emperor was urged to take advantage of coups in neighboring domains, she opposed the operation, and was proved right when the Khitan army was defeated and forced to withdraw. After Emperor Taizu died in 926, as Empress Dowager, she continued to advise her son, Emperor Taizong, including arranging his marriage, but also arranged the executions of troublesome officials and courtiers. In traditional Khitan society, women were expected to sacrifice themselves, and Empress Dowagers were supposed to wield their influence quietly behind the scenes, but Shulü Ping provided an alternative role model for high status women through the rule of two emperors.

October 19, 1825 – Jeanette Granberg Stjernström born, Swedish writer, playwright, feminist, and translator. She sometimes used the pseudonym “Georges Malméen.” She wrote plays for the popular Mindre teatern (“smaller theatre”) in Stockholm. Known for Läsarepresten (The Reading Priest), and Tidningsskrifvaren (The Newspaper Clerk). In 1854, she married the actor Edvard Stjernström, founder of the Swedish Theatre (Stockholm). Jeanette died in 1857. After her death, her husband married her sister, Louise Granberg, who was a theatrical director and also wrote plays. Jeanette Granberg was considered a rising dramatic talent, and expected to become a major playwright. Her death at age 31 was seen as a great loss for the theatre.

October 19, 1850 – Annie Smith Peck born, American mountaineer, teacher, feminist, author and lecturer; first woman to attend the American School of Classical Studies at Athens; taught archeology and Latin at Purdue University and Smith College; her tunic and trousers worn with boots when she climbed the Matterhorn in 1895 caused a serious hullaballoo in the press, and prompted public debate on what woman can and should do; first woman to climb Huascarán in Peru (22,204 feet/6768 meters) when she was 57 years old, then climbed Coropuna (20,922 feet/6.377 meters) in 1911 and planted a “Votes for Women” banner at the summit; she continued to climb mountains until she was 82 years old.

October 19, 1868 – Bertha Knight Landes born, high school teacher who married geologist Henry Landes in 1894, and moved with him to Seattle. She became president of the Washington State chapter of the League of Women Voters. In 1921, as president of the Seattle Federation of Women's Clubs, she orchestrated a week-long Women's Educational Exhibit for Washington Manufacturers. Staffed by more than 1,000 clubwomen, and showcasing the technological innovations of 130 manufacturers, it bolstered the spirits of the business community during a period of severe recession, and symbolized the emergence of Seattle as a sophisticated, modern metropolis. The mayor promptly appointed her as the only woman member of a commission studying ways to relieve unemployment. She served as a Seattle city councilwoman (1922-1924) – she and Kathryn Miracle were the first two women on the city council. Landes became the first woman mayor of a major American city, when she was elected Seattle’s mayor (1926-1928). In spite of her record of cleaning up corruption, and putting the city’s finances in order, she was defeated in her run for a second term by Frank Edwards, after a concerted effort to get out the male vote. In 1931, Edwards would be recalled by the voters, 125,000 votes to 15,000, because he was suspected of being in cahoots with corporations trying to get City Light, the municipal power company, privatized. Landes continued her civic activism until her health began to decline around 1939. She died in 1943, at the age of 75.

October 19, 1879 – Emma Bell Miles born, American short story writer, poet, and artist; published The Spirit of the Mountains in 1905, which contained stories, travels narratives, memoir and cultural analysis of Southern Appalachia; a section of her book on Appalachian music which first appeared as an article in Harper’s Monthly in 1904 is probably the first printed in a popular magazine; her journals have also appeared in print.

October 19, 1909 – Marguerite Perey born, French physicist and chemist, a student of Marie Curie. Noted for her discovery of the element francium; in 1949, she became chair of a new nuclear chemistry department at the University of Strasbourg. In 1962, she became the first woman elected to the French Académie des Sciences, an honor denied to her mentor. She died in 1975 of cancer caused by radiation.

October 19, 1917 –During WWII, Salvation Army Ensign Helen Purviance and Captain Margaret Sheldon, two of the first eleven Salvation Army women to arrive in France, were stationed behind the American fighting lines at Monte-sur-Soux, France. They rigged-up a make-shift system to provide doughnuts for the soldiers. Purviance had to get on her knees to work the tiny stove, and they had no way to make holes in the first batch of 150 “doughnuts.” They were nevertheless received with overwhelming enthusiasm by the troops. Purviance improvised the tools they needed, using a wine bottle as a rolling pin, and getting a French blacksmith to combine an empty evaporated milk can, a shaving cream tube, and a block of wood into a dough cutter so their doughnuts had holes and were more symmetrical. The doughnuts were in such demand, they had to upgrade their equipment, and production increased to over 2,000 doughnuts a day. The “Doughnut Girls” often received thank you notes on scraps of paper, but they wanted to do more. In January, 1918, in spite of General Pershing’s reservations about women in a combat zone, Helen Purviance and three other “Doughnut Girls” were admitted to the front lines, equipped with gas masks, steel helmets, rubber blankets, and army revolvers. They suffered freezing cold, artillery bombardment, and all the other hardships which the soldiers faced except combat, and carried out their mission until the end of the war in November, 1918. Purviance estimated she had cooked over one million doughnuts. She came home a national heroine, and used her celebrity to promote the Salvation Army, helping to set up Salvation Army posts in her hometown of Huntington, Indiana, and in Oswego, New York. By 1924 she was on the teaching staff at the Salvation Army’s training school in the Bronx, New York. In 1936, she became the dean of the training college. She continued to make speeches, and often demonstrated making doughnuts at events, generating more positive press for the Salvation Army. Doughnuts surged in popularity in the U.S. Though she dreaded another war, when the U.S. entered WWII, Brigadier Helen Purviance trained the Salvation Army recruits for work in the field. A new treat was developed, the “All-American Cookie,” which could be made and packaged in Salvation Army kitchens at home, then shipped overseas.

**Helen Purviance** with a batch of doughnuts

October 19, 1923 – Ruth Carter Stevenson born, American art patron and collector; founder of the Amon Carter Museum of Art in Fort Worth, Texas, noted for its collection of American Western Art; she was the first woman appointed to the board of the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC, and its first woman chair.

October 19, 1926 – Marjorie Tallchief born, member of the Osage nation and prima ballerina, the first Native American to be named première danseuse étoile in the Paris Opera Ballet; younger sister of Maria Tallchief. One of the ‘Five Moons’ - Native American ballerinas from Oklahoma who achieved international prominence during the 20th century.

Marjorie Tallchief and Erik Bruhn in ‘Don Quixote’

October 19, 1930 – Mavis M. Nicholson born in Wales, British writer and radio-TV broadcaster; started with Thames Television hosting one of their first daytime television programmes; was a presenter on Tea Break, Good Afternoon, After Noon and Mavis on 4, from the 1970s to the 1990s. Notable for her interviewing skills.

October 19, 1936 – Johnnetta Cole born, American anthropologist and educator; director of the National Museum of African Art 92009-2017), and was president of Bennett College (2002-2007). She was the first African-American woman president (1987-1997) of Spelman College. In 1960-1962, she did her dissertation field work in Liberia, together with her husband. He conducted economic surveys, and she engaged in fieldwork in Liberian villages and towns.

October 19, 1945 – Patricia Ireland born, American lawyer, administrator and feminist activist; president of the National Organization for Women (1991-2001); when she worked as a flight attendant for Pan Am, Ireland discovered gender-based discrepancies in the treatment of insurance coverage for spouses of employees, brought a formal complaint and fought for a change in coverage. After the U.S. Department of Labor ruled in her favor, she began law school and performing volunteer work for the National Organization for Women. She advocated extensively for the rights of poor women, gays and lesbians, and African-American women. She has campaigned for electing female candidates, and trained people to defend clinics from anti-choice protesters around the United States; author of What Women Want.

October 19, 1954 – Deborah Blum born, American journalist, science writer and director of the Knight Science Journalism program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT); author of The Poisoner’s Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York, and The Poison Squad; she wrote a series of articles for the Sacramento Bee called “The Monkey Wars” which won the 1992 Pulitzer Prize for Beat Reporting.

October 19, 1958 – Carolyn Browne born, British diplomat, British Ambassador to Kazakhstan (2013-2018); Ambassador to Azerbaijan (2007-2011); one of the Permanent Representatives of the United Kingdom to the European Union (2002-2005).

October 19, 1960 – Susan Straight born, American author, essayist, and short story writer; 2007 Lannan Literary Award for Fiction; 2008 Edgar Allan Poe Award for her short story “The Golden Gopher.”

October 19, 1962 – Tracy Chevalier born in America, American-British historical novelist, best known for Girl with a Pearl Earring.

October 19, 1967 – Amy Carter born, American human rights and diplomatic solutions activist; daughter of Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter; as a student she campaigned against apartheid in South Africa, and CIA recruitment on college campuses. She is a member of the board of counselors of the Carter Center. She illustrated a book her father wrote for children, The Little Baby Snoogle-Fleejer, about the unlikely friendship between a boy who can’t walk and a sea monster.

October 19, 1983 – Cara Santa Maria born, American science writer, producer, television host and podcaster; host of Talk Nerdy to Me (2011-2013); co-host of The Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe since 2015; science correspondent for the Huffington Post.

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October 19, 2016 – During the third Presidential Debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton said, “Donald thinks belittling women makes him bigger. I don’t think there’s a woman out there who doesn’t know what that feels like.”

October 19, 2019 – In the UK, the Centre For Women’s Justice brought a complaint about the “boys’ club” culture within certain police forces that allows officers to abuse their spouses or partners without fear of arrest or prosecution. Key to the complaint are 19 cases where women have made allegations of domestic abuse and sexual violence against an officer or staff, only for the case to be dropped. “The police service is a traditionally male environment, where female officers remain in the minority, and also has a strong tradition of solidarity and loyalty between officers,” the complaint states. “This setting creates the potential for the seriousness of abuse to be downplayed and for a primary loyalty given to the male insider.” The CWJ complaint recommends appointing an external force to investigate police domestic abuse cases, “There is a real risk of lack of integrity and manipulation of police processes. We consider that the only way to address this is to create a physical separation between the investigation and the parties,” adding that this could help victims feel more confident in the process. Nogah Ofer, the CWJ solicitor who wrote the complaint, said: “We have been contacted by over 40 women who have felt severely let down by the police service after they reported domestic abuse and sexual offences committed by police officers and staff.” The three policing bodies who deal with complaints – the Independent Office for Police Conduct, Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and the College of Policing – will now decide whether to investigate further the CWJ’s complaint.

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October 20, 1740 – Isabelle de Charrière born, aka Belle van Zuylen, Dutch writer of the Enlightenment; noted for her novels and letters, but she also penned pamphlets, plays and music; corresponded with writers like James Boswell and Benjamin Constant; her first novel, Le Noble, a satire against the nobility, was published anonymously when she was 43 years old, but her identity was soon discovered, and her parents withdrew the work from sale.

Isabelle de Charrière — by Maurice-Quentin de La Tour

October 20, 1832 – Ellen Hardin Walworth born, author, lawyer, historic preservationist, early advocate for the establishment of the U. S. National Archives. She was one of the first women in New York State to hold a position on a local board of education, a role she used to bolster the call for women's suffrage.

October 20, 1862 – Maud Nathan born, social worker, advocate for working women, stalwart suffragist, and a notable speaker much admired for her sense of humor. She was a co-founder and second president (1897-1917) of the Consumers’ League of New York. In 1912, she was head of the women’s suffrage committee in Theodore Roosevelt's National Progressive Party Bull Moose campaign. She frequently clashed with her sister, Annie Nathan Meyer (a founder of Barnard College), who was an advocate for higher education for women, but was as much against women winning the right to vote as Maud Nathan was in favor of it. They were cousins of poet Emma Lazarus, and of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Benjamin Cardozo. Both sisters tried to influence Cardozo.

October 20, 1862 – Nellie McClung born, Canadian politician, activist, Liberal member of Legislative Assembly of Alberta (1921-1926), one of Canada’s ‘Famous Five’ in the Persons’ Case.

October 20, 1904 – Enolia Pettigen McMillan born, African American high school teacher and principal, civil rights activist, and community leader; President of Maryland’s State Colored Teachers’ Association; first woman to chair the Morgan State University Board of Regents; first woman president of the NAACP (1984-1990).

October 20, 1920 – Fanny de Sivers born, Estonian-French linguist, literature researcher and essayist; linguist at the French National Centre for Scientific Research.

October 20, 1927 – Joyce Brothers born, American psychologist, author, television personality; columnist for Good Housekeeping magazine for almost 40 years.

October 20, 1937 – Byllye Avery born, African American women’s healthcare and reproductive justice activist and advocate. She was one of the founders of the Gainesville Women’s Health Center, the first abortion and gynecological care clinic in the city, in 1974, which offered services at low cost, and specific services for black women, like sickle cell anemia testing. In 1978, Avery helped to found Birthplace, an alternative birthing center in Gainesville, where certified nurse-midwives assisted women with deliveries. In 1984, she initiated, and became a founder, of the National Black Women’s Health Project (now the Black Women’s Health Imperative). NBWHP was the first national organization to focus exclusively on the health and wellness of black women and girls. Along with prominent African-American leaders like Shirley Chisholm, Maxine Waters, Dorothy Height, and Faye Wattleton, she signed a public statement, "We Remember: African American Women for Reproductive Freedom” in 1989. The statement supports reproductive freedom (including the right to have children, the right to access to contraceptive services and reproductive health information, and the right to health care as well as safe and legal abortions). The statement connected racism, poverty, and violence to negative reproductive health outcomes for African American women.

October 20, 1937 – Emma Tennant born, British prolific postmodern novelist; noted for Sisters and Strangers, The Beautiful Child, and The French Dancer's Bastard. She died at age 79 in 2017, from Alzheimer’s disease.

October 20, 1942 – Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard born, German developmental biologist; she was the co-winner of 1995 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for work on identifying genes involved in embryonic development, which revolutionized the field of developmental genetics. In a systematic search for mutant genes affecting the formation of segments in the eggs of a small fruit fly, she and her colleagues identified all of the genes of this type, clarifying the processes of development in the fruit fly embryo. They categorised the mutants as three different types of genes, which they believed controlled an increasingly complex organisation of the organism.

October 20, 1946 – The Democratic Republic of Vietnam sets October 20 as Vietnamese Women’s Day.

October 20, 1946 – Elfriede Jelinek born, Austrian playwright, novelist, feminist, and controversial political activist; won the 2004 Nobel Prize in Literature; her novel, The Piano Teacher, inspired the 2001 film.

October 20, 1946 – Diana Gittins born, American author and academic; noted for Madness in Its Place: Narratives of Severalls Hospital 1913-1997.

October 20, 1952 – Wilma Salgado born, Ecuadorian politician and economist; Minister of the Interior (2008); member of the Andean Parliament (2007-2008); appointed as Manager of the Deposit Guarantee Agency (AGD) in 2003, she ordered the seizure of goods from dozens of companies and individuals owing money to banks that had been bankrupted in the financial crisis of 1999. Former President of the National Congress Juan José Pons filed a lawsuit against Salgado for seizing a house belonging to him, accusing her of perverting the course of justice, but she was acquitted of the charges.

October 20, 1957 – Jane Bonham Carter born, Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury; British Liberal Democrat politician and member of the House of Lords since 2004; Liberal Democrat’s Director of Communications (1996-1997); previously, she was a television news producer for the BBC and Channel 4.

October 20, 1957 – Valerie Faris born, American film and video director with partner Jonathan Dayton; noted for co-directing the feature film Little Miss Sunshine, which was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture; writer Michael Arndt won an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay, and Alan Arkin won Best Supporting Actor for the film.

October 20, 1957 – Hilda Solis born, American Democratic politician, daughter of immigrants from Nicaragua and Mexico; California State Assemblywoman (1992-2001), and first Hispanic woman to serve in the State Senate, where she authored 17 bills to prevent domestic violence, and championed labor, education, and health care issues; U.S. Representative from California (2001-2009); U.S. Secretary of Labor (2009-2013); since 2014, serving on the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors.

October 20, 1958 – Lyn Flewelling born, American fantasy fiction author, noted for The Nightrunner Series, and The Tamir Triad.

October 20, 1961 – Kate Mosse born, English novelist and non-fiction author; her novel, Labyrinth, has been translated into 37 languages.

October 20, 1963 – Julie Payette born, Canadian politician, astronaut and engineer; Governor General of Canada since 2017; COO for the Montreal Science Centre (21013-2017); chief astronaut for the Canadian Space Agency (2000-2007), she completed two spaceflights STS-96 (1999) and STS-127 (2009), logging more than 25 says in space, and served as a capsule communicator at NASA Mission Control in Houston.

October 20, 1964 – Kamala Harris born, American lawyer and Democratic politician; current Democratic candidate for Vice President; U.S. Senator from California since 2017, the third woman to serve as a California U.S. Senator, and the first of Jamaican or Sub-continental Indian descent; Attorney General of California (2011-2017); District Attorney of San Francisco (2004-2011).

October 20, 1967 – Susan Tully born, actress noted for playing Michelle Fowler in the BBC series EastEnders (1985-1995); since then, she has been working behind the camera, usually credited as ‘Sue’ Tully, directing and producing British television programmes, including EastEnders, The Bill, Lark Rise to Candleford, The A Word, and Line of Duty. Tully is a supporter of The Meningitis Trust, and also involved with Comic Relief, the British annual charitable fundraising programme.

October 20, 2019 – English poet Fiona Benson’s second collection, Vertigo & Ghost, won the prestigious £10,000 Forward prize for best poetry collection. Described as poems that bring the violence of Greek myths into the #MeToo era, Vertigo & Ghost explores women’s fear, desire and ferocity, while outing Zeus as a serial rapist.

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October 21, 1854 – Florence Nightingale and a staff of 38 nurses leave Britain for Scutari, in the Ottoman Empire, to tend sick or wounded British soldiers during the Crimean War.

October 21, 1896 – Esther Shumiatcher-Hirschbein born in Belorussia, Canadian Yiddish poet, playwright and screenwriter; she moved to New York after her marriage in 1918 to New York Yiddish playwright Peretz Hirschbein, where she published two children’s plays intended for use in the Yiddish secular schools. In 1940, the couple moved to Hollywood. She is noted for writing poems about pregnancy, motherhood, and about grief when her husband died.

October 21, 1911 – Mary Robinson Blair born, American artist and children’s author who drew concepts for the Walt Disney animated films of Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, Song of the South and Cinderella; also worked on designs for attractions at Disneyland.

Cinderella-preliminaryconceptstudy-MaryRobinsonBlair.jpg — Mary Robinson Blair — preliminary concept study for ‘Cinderella’

October 21, 1918 – Albertina Sisulu born, South African anti-apartheid activist, married to Walter Sisulu; she won a scholarship to Mariazell College in the Eastern Cape, but was only able to go home during the December holidays, then became a trainee nurse after graduation at Johannesburg General in 1940, which is where she met Walter Sisulu in 1941. They were married in 1944, with Nelson Mandela as Best Man. In 1946, she began working as a midwife in Johannesburg. Walter Sisulu was already active in the African National Congress, and she joined the ANC Women’s League in 1955, taking part in the launch of the Freedom Charter that year. She was the only woman present at the birth of the ANC Youth League. Sisulu became a member of the executive of the Federation of South African Women in 1954. On 9 August 1956, Sisulu joined Helen Joseph and Sophia Williams-De Bruyn in a march of 20,000 women to the Union Buildings of Pretoria in protest against the apartheid government's requirement that women carry passbooks as part of the pass laws. "We said, 'nothing doing'. We are not going to carry passes." The day is celebrated in South Africa as National Women's Day. She spent three weeks in jail before being acquitted on pass charges, with Nelson Mandela as her lawyer. Her husband was repeatedly arrested, and went underground in 1963 while out on bail. She became the first woman arrested under the General Laws Amendment Act of 1963. He was caught in July, along with 16 others. At the conclusion of the trial (1963–1964), he was sentenced to life imprisonment in June 1964. With other senior ANC figures, he served the majority of his sentence on Robben Island, and was finally released after almost 26 years in prison in 1989. Though she was arrested several times, she held the family together, and scraped and saved to send the children to schools in Swaziland. Most of them grew up to be leaders in democratic South Africa, serving in government, and as heads of non-profit foundations. She served as a member of Parliament (1994-1998). The Sisulus were married for 59 years, but spent much of that time apart. In 2003, Walter Sisulu died in his wife’s arms at the age of 90. She founded the Albertina Sisulu Foundation to improve the lives of small children and old people. Albertina Sisulu died in 2011 at the age of 92, while watching television with her grandchildren. She was given a state funeral, and national flags were flown at half-mast.

October 21, 1921 – Ingrid van Houten-Groeneveld born, Dutch astronomer; she is credited with the discovery or co-discovery of 4,625 numbered minor planets.

October 21, 1925 – Celia Cruz born, Afro-Cubana singer; five-time Grammy-winning “Queen of Salsa Music.” She recorded over 50 albums in her career. Notable for her famous “¡Azúcar!” (sugar) catchphrase, powerful voice and over-the-top wigs and outfits, Cruz achieved global recognition and numerous accolades. After the Cuban Revolution, she moved to Mexico, then to the U.S. In 1998, she received the U.S. National Medal of Arts at the White House.

October 21, 1928 – Eudóxia Maria Froehlich born, Brazilian zoologist, noted for her work on land planarians (flatworms) and arachnids.

October 21, 1929 – Ursula K. Le Guin born, American author, poet, and critic; The Left Hand of Darkness, The Earthsea series, The Dispossessed, and The Lathe of Heaven; became a Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Grandmaster in 2003.

October 21, 1933 – Maureen Duffy born, English author, poet, and playwright. Known for the play Rites, and its sequel, Washhouse; activist for LGBTQ and Animal rights.

October 21, 1940 – Frances Fitzgerald born, American journalist, historian, and nonfiction author; Fire in the Lake won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award.

October 21, 1940 – Marita Petersen born, Faroese politician, special needs teacher and school manager; the first woman Prime Minister of the Faroe Islands (1993-1994); first female speaker of the Løgting (Parliament 1994-1995); Leader of Javnaðarflokkurin (Faroese Socialist Party); Minister of Cultural Affairs (1991-1993); member of the Løgting (1988-1998 – except when she was a minster or prime minister). When she became Prime Minister, unemployment rates were at a record high, people were leaving the country, the fishing industry was struggling, protests occurred almost daily, and the economy was on the brink of collapse. As Prime Minister, Petersen spearheaded tough negotiations with the Danish Government and the Danish Bank, preventing the Faroese economy from crashing. She also reached an agreement with the trade unions to cut back wages in order to avoid mass lay-offs in the public sector. When she first became a member of the Løgting, she was one of only three women representatives. Today, 10 of the 33 members are women, and many more women are involved in both the ministries and local government. Petersen is credited as “the woman who saved the Faroe Islands,” and is an icon for the islands’ women. She died of cancer at the age of 60 in 2001.

October 21, 1945 – French Women go to the polls and vote for the first time.

October 21, 1946 – Jane Heal born, British philosopher specializing in the philosophy of mind and language; Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of Cambridge since 2012; first woman President of St. John’s College, Cambridge (1999-2003); professor at Cambridge (1999-2012); lecturer at Cambridge (1986-1999); lecturer at Newcastle University (1975-1985); author of Mind, Reason and Imagination.

October 21, 1956 – Carrie Fisher born, American actress and author; noted for her book and screenplay, Postcards from the Edge.

October 21, 1959 – Kathleen Graber born, American poet; she has published three books: The River Twice (2019), The Eternal City (2010), which was a finalist for the National Book Award, and Correspondence (2006), which won the Saturnalia Books Poetry Prize.

October 21, 1967 – Jilly Dybka born, American poet, author of Trouble and Honey, and the chapbook Fair Territory. She is disabled by 2 rare diseases, Ehlers Danlos syndrome and postural tachycardia syndrome/dysautonomia. She has an M.S. in Information Sciences and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing, and lives in rural Tennessee.

October 21, 1973 – Lera Auerbach born to a Jewish family in Soviet Russia; orchestral composer and pianist; she defected to the U.S. in 1991 during a concert tour, and studied composition at the Julliard School; made her Carnegie Hall debut in 2002, performing her own Suite for Violin, Piano and Orchestra.

^{Warning — this is pretty loud, so check your volume control before starting}

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October 21, 2019 – In Northern Ireland, legislation that decriminalized abortion went into effect at midnight. "Thousands of women from the North have abortions every year, outside the law in their bedrooms or in England," said Alliance for Choice spokeswoman Goretti Horgan. "They will now be able to access normal health care." Northern Ireland previously had some of the most restrictive abortion laws anywhere, with the procedure almost entirely banned except when a woman's life was threatened. Under the old laws, women could be arrested for getting or even seeking an abortion, and healthcare workers could be prosecuted for performing an abortion.

October 21, 2019 – How to Treat People: A Nurse’s Notes, the memoir of Molly Case is released. Case is a British nurse, a cardiac nurse specialist, raised in South London, is also a powerful spoken word poet. In 2013, when she was a student nurse, she was invited to speak at the Royal College of Nurses Congress. “I didn't realize this was going to be a Bruce Springsteen stadium arena of 5,000 health care workers in Liverpool,” she said. “And even when I saw that it was going to be, I thought that my little kind of three minutes on stage would be the interlude whilst people went for their toilet breaks or they went to get their coffee. I thought people would be kind of bustling in and out as I try to read poetry because, as I'm sure most people know, it's hard to get an audience for poetry at the best of times.” After she recited her poem, “Nursing the Nation” the entire stadium leaped up and gave her a standing ovation. By the next morning, her You Tube channel had reached a 100,000 views overnight. Her poem, WomensWork100, was commissioned for the 2018 centennial exhibition for WWI at the Imperial War Museum in London.

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Sources

http://www.nwhp.org/events/october/
http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/article/important-dates-us-womens-history
http://www.historyplace.com/specials/calendar/october.htm
http://www.onthisday.com/day/october/
Women Trailblazers of California: Pioneers to the Present, © 2012 by Gloria G. Harris and Hannah S. Cohen — The History Press
todayinsci.com
A Book of Days for the Literary Year, edited by Neal T. Jones
The Music-Lover’s Birthday Book, Metropolitan Museum of Art
Thanks to WineRev — www.dailykos.com/…

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