mastodon 4.7.2Every day women have, and are, making history. Follow for daily posts.
We check replies irregularly during the week, and less at weekends.
If you would like to support us then we love likes, follows and reposts. We also have a kofi for donations or subscriptions. And in the UK we have an affiliate bookshop.
"I don’t wear men’s clothes, I wear my own."
#OnThisDay, 10 Apr 1864, army surgeon Dr Mary Edwards Walker is captured by the Confederates during the US Civil War. She later receives the Medal of Honor.
As well as serving in the Civil War, and being a dress reformer who preferred to wear trousers, she was also a suffragist who declined to take her husband’s name when they married.
#WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #AmericanHistory #Histodons
#OnThisDay, 21 Mar 1945, Hannie Schaft, an active member of the Dutch resistance known as "the girl with the red hair", was arrested at a German checkpoint in Haarlem.
She was later executed, allegedly saying "I shoot better" after the first attempt to shoot her missed.
#WomensHistoryMonth #WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #WW2 #DutchHistory #Histodons
A German guard once asked O'Sullivan what was in her suitcase. She laughed. “A wireless, of course!”.
Very early #OnThisDay, 23 Mar 1944 , Maureen 'Paddy' O'Sullivan parachutes into occupied France to be a radio operator for the British Special Operations Executive.
The SOE supported the French Resistance. Radio operators were at the greatest risk of capture as their position could be triangulated. O’Sullivan was never captured.
“Remember all Men would be tyrants if they could. If particular care and attention is not paid to the Ladies we are determined to foment a Rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any Laws in which we have no voice, or Representation."
#OnThisDay, 31 Mar 1776, Abigail Adams wrote to her husband, John Adams, who was drafting the Declaration of Independence. He declined her suggestions.
#WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #AmericanHistory #Histodons
#OnThisDay, 8 May 1946, Estonian teens Aili Jürgenson and Ageeda Paavel blew up a Soviet war memorial in response to Soviet destruction of Estonian war memorials. They served eight years in the gulag as punishment.
In 1988 they were awarded the Estonian Order of the Cross of the Eagle to recognise their fight.
We only have a photo of Aili Jürgenson.
#WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #EuropeanHistory #Histodons
#OnThisDay, 25 Mar 1941, the first WRNS arrive at Bletchley Park in the UK. They operate the Bombe machines used for decoding German Enigma machine messages. Their work helps shorten World War 2.
At its peak, 75% of the workforce at Bletchley were women.
#WomensHistoryMonth #WomenInHistory #WorldWar2 #History #BletchleyPark #Histodons
“Once, with hand-grenades in my shopping bag, I travelled in a train so full that I had to stand against a German NCO.”
#OnThisDay, 18 Mar 1943, Francine Agazarian arrives in Nazi-occupied France to be a courier in the Special Operations Executive. The British SOE supported the French Resistance.
#WomenInHistory #WomensHistoryMonth #History #WorldWar2 #Histodons
#OnThisDay, 3 Apr 1979, Jane Byrne wins the Chicago mayoral election. She is the first woman to be mayor of the city and is sworn in on 16 April. She hires the first black woman to be a school superintendent in the city, and stops the police raiding gay bars.
Lori Lightfoot was the second woman to hold the post, from 2019 to 2023. She’s the first black woman and the first LGBT+ mayor since the post was created in 1837.
#WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #AmericanHistory #Histodons
#OnThisDay, 30 Mar 1982, Bertha Wilson was sworn in to the Canadian Supreme Court. She is the first woman appointed to sit on it.
When she had started at law school in 1955, she was reportedly advised to 'take up crocheting' instead.
Her 1988 ruling decriminalised abortion in Canada.
#WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #WomensHistoryMonth #CanadianHistory #Histodons
#OnThisDay, 9 May 1922, the International Astronomical Union formally adopts Annie Jump Cannon's stellar classification system. The principles in it still underpin modern classification.
#WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #Astronomy #WomenInSTEM #AmericanHistory #Histodons
#OnThisDay, 26 Mar 1974, Gaura Devi and 27 village women prevent the logging of trees in the village of Rini in the Himalayas. They confront armed men from the lumber company and hug the trees to stop them being felled.
https://carvehername.org.uk/women-fighting-deforestation-gaura-devi/
#WomensHistoryMonth #WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory#Histodons
Very early #OnThisDay, 6 Apr 1944, Lillian Rolfe and Violette Szabo separately arrive in occupied France to work for the British Special Operations Executive (SEO). Rolfe is a wireless operator, Szabo a courier.
Szabo returns to the UK at the end of April but goes back to France in June 1944 and is captured. Rolfe is captured in July 1944.
They are executed together, by shooting, in Ravensbrück concentration camp in Feb 1945.
#History #WomensHistory #WorldWar2 #Histodons #EuropeanHistory
#OnThisDay, 11 Mar 1959, Lorraine Hansberry's play, A Raisin in the Sun, is the first play by a Black woman to debut on Broadway.
Hansberry was a rising star when she died young of cancer. Her posthumous play, Young Gifted and Black, inspired her friend Nina Simone to write the song of the same name.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hdVFiANBTk
#WomensHistoryMonth #LiteraryWomen #AmericanHistory #WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #Histodons
Very early #OnThisDay, 6 May 1944, Marguerite 'Peggy' Knight parachutes into occupied France to be a courier for the Special Operations Executive. The British SOE supported the French resistance: couriers would move messages and equipment around an area.
Knight fought her way out of an attempted capture, and returned to the UK in September 1944.
#WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #WorldWar2 #Histodons
#OnThisDay, 5 May 1938, Dorothy Anderson presents her medical research identifying cystic fibrosis at a meeting of the American Pediatric Association.
#WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #WomenInMedicine #CysticFibrosis #Histodons
#OnThisDay, 13 May 1995, Alison Hargreaves becomes the first woman to scale Everest without supplemental oxygen or sherpa guides.
#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
1/2
#OnThisDay, 4 Mar 1933, Frances Perkins is sworn in as Secretary of Labor: the first woman to hold a cabinet post in the USA.
She was a workers-rights activist and key builder of the New Deal. She was in FDR's cabinet for all four terms of his Presidency.
#WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #AmericanHistory #WomenInPolitics #Histodons
1/2
#OnThisDay, 7 Apr 1141, Matilda is legally recognised as ruler of England in her own right. Her coronation never happens.
She was appointed heir by her father Henry I, then usurped by her cousin Stephen after Henry’s death. The civil war between the cousins is known as the Anarchy and lasted from 1138 to 1153.
#WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory
#EnglishHistory #AnarchyInTheUK #Histodons
#OnThisDay, 11 Mar 2006 and 11 Mar 2014, Michelle Bachelet was sworn in as President of Chile. She was the first woman to hold the role, and the first to be re-elected to it.
She was subsequently the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights (2018-2022) where she was criticized for visiting China. She is in the running to be the next General Secretary of the UN: if selected she would be the first woman to hold the role.
#OnThisDay, 7 May 1429, Jeanne d'Arc leads the French troops into the last day of fighting to lift the Siege of Orleans.
Read more at https://carvehername.org.uk/joan-of-arc-7-may-1429/
#WomenInHistory #EuropeanHistory #FrenchHistory #HundredYearsWar #JoanOfArc #Histodons
#OnThisDay, 15 May 1946, Camilla Williams makes her operatic debut as Cio-Cio San with the New York City Opera. She is the first Black woman to sign a contract with a major US opera company.
Read more: https://carvehername.org.uk/eight-famous-women-singers/
#WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #AmericanHistory #BlackHistory #Histodons
#OnThisDay, 23 Apr 2015, Loretta Lynch is confirmed as Attorney General of the US – the first Black woman to hold the post. It's exactly 143 years after Charlotte E Ray became the first Black woman lawyer in the US.
Read more: https://carvehername.org.uk/charlotte-e-ray-and-143-years-of-progress/
#WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #AmericanHistory #Histodons
#OnThisDay, 25 Apr 2005, between 500K and 1.1m people take part in the March for Womens' Lives in Washington DC.
#OnThisDay, 30 April 1937, 447,725 women in the Philippines vote to be given the vote in the women's suffrage plebiscite.
Yes, the government did ask women to vote on whether they should have the vote…
https://asiafoundation.org/2012/03/07/early-feminism-in-the-philippines/
#WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #VotesForWomen #Histodons
#OnThisDay, 31 Mar 1988, Toni Morrison's 'Beloved' wins the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. She was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993.
#ReadMoreWomen #AmericanHistory #WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #Histodons
#OnThisDay, 27 Apr 1992, Betty Boothroyd was elected Speaker of the UK House of Commons. She was the first - and to date only - woman to hold the role.
A working class woman, Betty had been a dancer before working for JFK and becoming an MP. She went on to sit in the House of Lords.
Watch: https://buff.ly/38djBcP
#WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #BritishHistory #Histodons
#OnThisDay, 2 Apr 2016, Trupti Desai leads a group of women in an attempt to enter the Shani Shingnapur Temple in Ahmednagar in India. Courts had ruled in favour of allowing women access but women were still being denied. It's part of a wider campaign for women to enter temples.
"Fear is just a line in your head. You can choose what side of the line you want to be on."
#OnThisDay, 24 April 2015, Sabeen Mehmud, a human rights activist, is killed in a targeted drive-by shooting in Pakistan.
#OnThisDay, 30 Mar 2019, Zuzana Čaputová was elected as President of Slovakia. She was the first - and so far only - woman to hold the role.
She had gained national prominence as a lawyer when she led a 14-year case against an illegal landfill.
#OnThisDay, 29 April 1945, French women vote for the first time.
Newsreel: https://www.ina.fr/video/AFE86003075
#WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #VotesForWomen #EuropeanHistory #Histodons
#OnThisDay, 15 Mar 1927, the inaugural women's boat race between Oxford and Cambridge takes place on the Isis.
In 2015, the women’s race was finally held on the same day, and over the same course, as the men’s race.
Watch silent newsreel of the 1927 race here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5J6kqhJGOWI
More: http://the-history-girls.blogspot.com/2015/03/women-making-waves-newton-womens-oxford.html
#WomenInHistory #WomensHistoryMonth #History #BoatRace #ThisGirlCan #BritishHistory #Histodons
#OnThisDay, 27 Mar 1997, Pamela Gordon becomes the first woman to be Premier of Bermuda, after winning a party leadership election. Her party, the United Bermuda Party, was centre-right.
#WomenInHistory #WomenInPolitics #WomensHistoryMonth #History #Histodons
"We are the result of many fights, we carry in our blood the inheritance of our grandmothers, our roots make demands of us and our daughters are rebelling."
#OnThisDay, 29 April 2010, Alberta "Bety" Cariño Trujillo is killed whilst taking provisions to besieged indigenous communities in Mexico.
#OnThisDay, 2 Apr 1991, Rita Johnson becomes the first female premier of a Canadian province when she is elected by the political caucus.
#OnThisDay, 12 Mar 1994, the first 32 women are ordained as priests in the Church of England. Angela Berners-Wilson was the very first.
#WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #WomensHistoryMonth #EnglishHistory #Histodons
Treat yourself this Easter to ANY book from our UK bookshop. Buy between 3 and 6 April and you'll be supporting independent bookshops AND have a chance to win a £400 digital gift card: https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/CarveHerName
1/2
Last day to treat yourself this Easter to ANY book from our UK bookshop. Buy by 6 April and you'll be supporting independent bookshops AND have a chance to win a £400 digital gift card: https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/CarveHerName
1/2