#OnThisDay, 24 Oct 1901, American Annie Edson Taylor becomes the first *person* to survive a trip over Niagara Falls in a barrel.
The cat did *not* do the stunt with her.
onthisday
Today in 1972, 53 years ago: Title IX of the United States Civil Rights Act of 1964 is amended to prohibit sexual discrimination to any educational program receiving federal funds.
#OnThisDay, 11 Oct 1922, Alaska P Davidson becomes the first woman to be an FBI Special Agent. She was employed to focus on the trafficking of women across state lines.
J Edgar Hoover requests her resignation, along with her colleagues Jessie Duckstein and Lenore Houston, in 1924. The FBI does not appoint another woman as a Special Agent until 1972.
#WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #AmericanHistory #Histodons
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“Had she been a man she would have become Prime Minister.“
#OnThisDay, 21 Oct 1958, Stella Isaacs (Baroness Swanborough) becomes the first woman to take a seat in the UK House of Lords.
She campaigned tirelessly for the rights of refugee children.
#WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #BritishHistory #histodons
Love is like an itchin' in my heart...
#OnThisDay, 22 Oct 1966, The Supremes become the first all-woman group to get to no 1 in the US Billboard album charts with The Supremes A' Go-Go.
Listen to their version of Get Ready: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VD_7_MhgHhc
#WomenInHistory #OTD #History #AmericanHistory #PopHistory #Histodons
#OnThisDay, 27 Oct 1967, the Abortion Act gains royal assent. It allows women in the UK – except for Northern Ireland - to legally have an abortion on a range of medical grounds but stops short of making abortion legal.
It came into effect in April 1968 everywhere except Northern Ireland: NI passed their own act in 2020.
#WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #BritishHistory #Histodons
#OnThisDay, 28 Oct 1908, Muriel Matters, Violet Tillard and Helen Fox unfurl a banner and then chain themselves to the grille in the Ladies Gallery in the House of Commons, London, demanding votes for women.
#WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #BritishHistory #Histodons
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#onthisday on 2016 the last season of British children's #television series Postman Pat started airing.
The 29th March 2017 was the last time everyone's favorite postman picked up his van with his cat Jess to deliver letters and parcels across Greendale.
The series started airing on 16th September 1981 and in its 35-year-long run it accumulated 184 episodes spread across 8 seasons.
Plus 12 specials, a film and a spin-off series.
Read more on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postman_Pat
A spark of freedom can light up the future of many.
#OnThisDay, 35 years ago, the Velvet Revolution began in Prague.
When people took to the streets in the autumn of 1989, they risked their own freedom to achieve it for all.
Their unity inspired Europe and the world, and their peaceful revolution changed the course of history forever.
#OnThisDay, 5 July 1957, Althea Gibson becomes the first Black person to win a #Wimbledon Singles tennis trophy.
Blogpost by Moira from 2019:
https://illustratedwomeninhistory.com/althea-gibson/
Newsreel: https://youtu.be/2EJCqBsh2Dk?t=1m15s
Listen to her being interviewed here (dead bird link)
https://twitter.com/BBCArchive/status/1412427791396659204
#BlackHistory #TennisHistory #WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #Histodons
#OnThisDay, 24 Nov 2015, mathematician Katherine Johnson receives the US Presidential Medal of Freedom for her work on the space programme.
Her story was told in 'Hidden Figures'.
#OnThisDay, 1 Aug 1786, Caroline Herschel discovers comet C/1786 P1, becoming one of the first women to find one (and have it named after her). Her brother was appointed court astronomer to King George III. When Caroline took a government salary for helping him she became the first woman to be paid for her astronomical work.
This week, 2025, Prof Michele Dougherty became the first woman to be Astronomer Royal.
#WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #WomenInSTEM #Histodons
#OnThisDay, 28 Nov 1967, Jocelyn Bell Burnell discovers the existence of pulsars.
Not included in the 1974 Nobel prize for the discovery, Bell received a £3m prize for her work in 2018. She's used it to set up a foundation to improve the diversity in STEM.
#WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #WomenInSTEM #Histodons
“The more we gave in, the more we complied with that kind of treatment, the more oppressive it became.”
#OnThisDay, 1 Dec 1955, Rosa Parks does *not* give up her seat on the bus for a white passenger, and is arrested. Her refusal is a key moment in the American civil rights movement.
#WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #AmericanHistory #Histodons
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It's ALIVE!
#OnThisDay, 1 Jan 1818, Mary Shelley's 'Frankenstein' was published anonymously. Her gothic novel was also one of the first science-fiction novels.
#ReadMoreWomen #LiteraryWomen
#WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #Histodons
#OnThisDay, 2 Apr 1917, Jeanette Rankin is sworn in, becoming the first woman to sit in the US Congress.
#WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #AmericanHistory #Histodons
#OnThisDay, 16 Jan 1970, Dilma Rousseff, a member of the Brazilian guerrilla movement against the military government, was arrested. She was labelled the “Joan of Arc” of the movement.
In 2011 she became the first woman to be president of Brazil.
Edited 300d ago
#OnThisDay, 16 June 2012, Liu Yang becomes the first Chinese woman to be an astronaut aboard Shenzhou 9.
#OnThisDay, 26 Dec 1898, Marie and Pierre Curie announced their discovery of radium.
In 1903, Marie, Pierre and Henri Becquerel received the Nobel Prize for Physics for their work on radiation. Marie was the first woman to receive the award.
#WomenInHistory #OTD #WomensHistory #WomenInSTEM #NobelWomen #Histodons
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#OnThisDay, 29 Jan 1891, Liliʻuokalani is sworn in as Queen of the Hawaiian Kingdom.
She is the first, and only, regnant queen of the country and is deposed in a coup in 1893 that was supported by the US marines.
#RegnantWomen #WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #Histodons
Edited 287d ago
#OnThisDay, 30 Jan 1913, Ida B Wells forms the Alpha Suffrage Club in Chicago, Illinois, to give a voice to Black women who had been excluded by national suffrage organisations because of their race.
In March 1913, the club headed to Washington DC to take part in the national Women’s Suffrage Procession. They were told to march at the back, in a segregated section, so as not to upset white southern women.
#WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #AmericanHistory #Histodons
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#OnThisDay, 24 Feb 1968, Jocelyn Bell Burnell - along with her male supervisor and three other men - published a paper confirming the discovery of pulsars. She had built the array, picked up the signal and argued it was not an anomaly. Hewish received the Nobel prize for it in 1974: Bell Burnell did not.
In 2018 Bell Burnell received a £3m prize for her work. She's used it to set up a foundation to improve the diversity in STEM.
#OnThisDay, 24 Mar 1944, Éliane Plewman is arrested by the Gestapo in Nazi-occupied France after six months operating as a courier for the Special Operations Executive. The British SOE supported the French resistance. A courier carried messages and equipment around their network.
#WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #WorldWar2 #EuropeanHistory #SOE
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Edited 233d ago
#OnThisDay, 15 Feb 1776, Hannah Cowley’s first play, The Runaway, opened at Drury Lane.
Cowley had written her play and sent it to David Garrick, Drury Lane’s manager, after sitting through a particularly rubbish play. Garrick cast a young Sarah Siddons in the lead.
Siddon’s character rails against the marriage vows: 'I won't hear of it, “love” one might manage that perhaps, but “honour, obey”!’
#WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #Histodons #BritishHistory
#OnThisDay, 19 March 1944, Yvonne Baseden parachutes into Nazi-occupied France as a Special Operations Executive radio operator. The British SOE supported the French resistance. Radio operators ran the greatest risk of discovery as their position could be triangulated when they were transmitting.
Baseden was captured and sent to Ravensbrück.
She was the subject of the first regular UK edition of This Is Your Life in 1955.
#WomenInHistory #WomensHistoryMonth #History #WorldWar2 #Histodons
