WOW2 is a four-times-a-month sister blog to This Week in the War on Women. This edition covers trailblazing women and events from July 9 through July 16.
PLEASE NOTE: Since there are five Saturdays this month, and my husband’s birthday is next week, the next installment of WOW2 will be on July 23.
“I write for those women who do not speak, for those who do not have a voice because they are so terrified, because we are taught to respect fear more than ourselves. We’ve been taught that silence would save us, but it won’t …
... My silences had not protected me. Your silences will not protect you … What are the words you do not yet have? What are the tyrannies you swallow day by day and attempt to make your own, until you will sicken and die of them, still in silence? We have been socialized to respect fear more than our own need for language ...
... Our speaking out will irritate some people, get us called bitchy or hypersensitive and disrupt some dinner parties. And then our speaking out will permit other women to speak, until laws are changed and lives are saved and the world is altered forever.
... Once you start to speak, people will yell at you. They will interrupt you, put you down and suggest it’s personal. And the world won’t end.
... And the speaking will get easier and easier. And you will find you have fallen in love with your own vision, which you may never have realized you had. And you will lose some friends and lovers, and realize you don’t miss them. And new ones will find you and cherish you. And you will still flirt and paint your nails, dress up and party, because, as I think Emma Goldman said, “If I can’t dance, I don’t want to be part of your revolution.” And at last you’ll know with surpassing certainty that only one thing is more frightening than speaking your truth. And that is not speaking.”
“For the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. They may allow us to temporarily beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change. Racism and homophobia are real conditions of all our lives in this place and time. I urge each one of us here to reach down into that deep place of knowledge inside herself and touch that terror and loathing of any difference that lives here. See whose face it wears. Then the personal as the political can begin to illuminate all our choices.”
“I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own.”
“It is not our differences that divide us. It is our inability to recognize, accept, and celebrate those differences.”
— Audre Lorde (1934–1992)
“black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet”
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.
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.
THIS WEEK IN THE WAR ON WOMEN
will post shortly, so be sure to go there next, and
catch up on the latest dispatches from the frontlines.
Many, many thanks to libera nos, intrepid Assistant Editor 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.
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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- July 9, 1511 – Dorothea of Saxe-Lauenburg born, Queen consort of Denmark and Norway by her marriage to King Christian III. While she had no public power, she was known to be a trusted advisor by her husband, and wielded some degree of power behind the scenes. She was a strict parent, both to her own children, and to several children of noble families that she raised as foster children, but she helped free her lady-in-waiting Birgitte Gøye from an engagement made against her will by her family when she was 14 years old. The queen persuaded her husband to launch an investigation into the matter, which resulted in a new law which banned parents from arranging engagements for their minor children.
- July 9, 1764 – Ann Radcliffe born, English novelist, pioneer of the Gothic novel; noted for The Romance of the Forest and The Mysteries of Udolpho.
- July 9, 1811 – Fanny Fern born, American author and columnist for the New York Ledger.
- July 9, 1858 – Kaikhusrau Jahan born, progressive Begum (ruler) of Bhopal (1901- 1926), greatly improved education and public health services for her people.
- July 9, 1868 – The 14th Amendment to U.S. Constitution is ratified: grants citizenship to all persons born or naturalized in the U.S.; guarantees equal protection of the laws, and the right to due process before being deprived of life, liberty or property to all persons within its jurisdiction. This was the Amendment that Susan B. Anthony thought should give women the right to vote. What a difference it would have made if her view that “persons” included women had prevailed!
- July 9, 1894 – Dorothy Thompson born, American journalist and radio broadcaster. She was involved in the suffrage campaign from 1914 to 1920, when she moved to Europe, where her success as an interviewer led to her becoming a foreign correspondent for the Philadelphia Ledger. She interviewed Hitler in 1931, and described him as “… ill poised and insecure. He is the very prototype of the little man." In 1934, she was the first American journalist to be expelled from Nazi Germany. In 1935, she started writing her column “On the Record” for the New York Herald Tribune, and was also hired as a news commentator on the radio. When the Germans invaded Poland in 1939, Thompson went on the air for fifteen consecutive days and nights. She was recognized by Time magazine in 1939 as the second most influential woman in America after Eleanor Roosevelt. However, her disparaging remarks about black American voters caused controversy. She was an early supporter of Zionism, until she visited Palestine in 1945. When she wrote critically about the treatment of the Palestinians as the state of Israel was forming, it raised a firestorm, and her popularity waned.
- July 9, 1915 – June Richmond born, American jazz singer; became the first African American singer to be a regular performer with a white band when Jimmy Dorsey hired her in 1938 for his orchestra, and made several recordings with them for Decca Records. She went on to perform with Cab Calloway, and later became a successful soloist, and appeared in a featured role in a Broadway musical. She moved to Europe, lived in Paris but also performed in Stockholm. In 1957 in Paris, she recorded several songs with the orchestra of Quincy Jones. She died of a heart attack at age 47 in 1962.
- July 9, 1917 – Krystyna Chlond Dańko born, Polish orphan in Otwock who saved the lives of her Jewish friend Lusia Kokszko, and Lusia’s family during the WWII Nazi occupation of Poland, smuggling two of them out of Otwock to Warsaw; she hid the rest of the family, and brought them food and clothing; in 1998, she was awarded the title Righteous among the Nations by Yad Vashem. Most of the rest of the Jews of Otwock perished in the Treblinka death camp, or were summarily shot when the Otwock ghetto was liquidated in September 1942.
- July 9, 1919 – Peggy Swarbrick Braithwaite born; she became her father’s assistant as keeper of the Walney lighthouse near Barrow, Lancashire, and was appointed as the first British woman principal light keeper in 1975. She retired in 1994, after serving for over 60 years. The Walney light was the last lighthouse in England to be automated, in 2003.
- July 9, 1926 – Mathilde Krim born in Italy, American medical researcher, part of the team that developed a prenatal method to determine fetal gender; one of the earliest researchers to recognize the severity of the threat of AIDS, she was the founding chair of AIDS Medical Foundation which became AmfAR, an association for AIDS research; she was honored in 2000 with Presidential Medal of Freedom, and the 2003 Jefferson Award for Greatest Public Service Benefiting the Disadvantaged.
- July 9, 1930 – Janice Lourie born, American computer scientist and graphic artist; pioneer in CAD/CAM for the textile industry, best known for inventing software tools that facilitate textile production from artist to manufacturer; a founding member of the Camerata of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, and played the tenor shawm and psaltery from the museum collection.
- July 9, 1931 – Sylvia A. Bacon born, American Associate Judge of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia (1970-1991), appointed by Richard Nixon; worked for the U.S. Department of Justice (1956-1970) and served under Ramsey Clark, helping to draft legislation for D.C. court reform.
- July 9, 1935 – Mercedes Sosa born, Argentine singer and activist, won several Grammy Awards and a posthumous Latin Grammy for Best Folk Album, UNICEF ambassador.
- July 9, 1936 – June Jordan born, American poet, writer, educator, and activist, columnist for The Progressive, librettist for the musical I Was Looking at the Ceiling and then I Saw the Sky; she was a recipient of numerous awards, including the Achievement Award for International Reporting from the National Association of Black Journalists.
- July 9, 1944 – Judith M. Brown born in India, British historian, specialist in modern South Asia, and an Anglican priest; Beit Professor of Commonwealth History, and a Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford (1990-2011); Research Fellow, Fellow and Director of Studies in History, Girton College, Cambridge (1968-1971); Gandhi and Civil Disobedience: The Mahatma in Indian Politics 1928-1934.
- July 9, 1950 – Gwen Guthrie born, R&B and soul singer-songwriter; best known for her 1986 anthem “Ain’t Nothin’ Goin’ On But the Rent,” but also wrote “God Don’t Like Ugly,” “You Touched My Life.” Guthrie wrote one of the first songs about AIDS, “Can’t Love You Tonight” and donated the song’s proceeds to the AIDS Coalition. She sang back-up for Aretha Franklin, Billy Joel, and Stevie Wonder before launching her solo career. She died of uterine cancer in 1999 at age 48.
- July 9, 1953 – Margie Gillis born, Canadian modern dance choreographer and solo dancer whose repertoire includes over 100 pieces; in 1987, she became the first modern dance artist to be awarded the Order of Canada; in 2008, the inaugural recipient of the Stella Adler MAD Spirit Award for her involvement in social causes.
Margie Gillis in ‘Torn Roots, Broken Branches’
- July 9, 1953 – Irina Latysheva born, Russian radio engineer and cosmonaut (1980-1993).
- July 9, 1964 – Courtney Love born, American singer-songwriter, actress, and writer; she was co-creator of three volumes of the manga, Princess Ai, and a memoir, Dirty Blonde: The Diaries of Courtney Love, which includes entries about her struggles with depression and drug abuse, and her tumultuous relationship with husband Kurt Cobain. She is a supporter of reforming the record industry to address piracy and putting more of the immense profits into helping the black community that has contributed so much to the industry. She is also a long-standing supporter of LGBT causes, including participation in the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center “An evening with Women” events, which raise funds for food and shelter for homeless youth, legal aid, and health and mental health services.
- July 9, 1974 – Siân Berry born, British politician and environmentalist; Co-Leader with Jonathan Bartley of the Green Party of England and Wales since 2018; Leader of the Green Party in the London Assembly (2016-2018); Member of the London Assembly since 2016; Principal Speaker of the Green Party (2006-2007). She was a founder of the Alliance against Urban 4X4s, a campaign demanding measures to stop sport utility vehicles from “taking over our cities” which has placed about 150,000 mock parking tickets on 4X4s.
- July 9, 1978 – In hot, humid weather, 100,000 supporters of the Equal Rights Amendment (E.R.A.) march in Washington DC, with banners in purple and white to honor the National Woman’s Suffrage Party of Alice Paul. Paul has turned, immediately after the long-awaited success of the campaign for women’s right to vote, to making women’s legal equality a Constitutional amendment, first introduced in Congress in 1923, but not sent to the states for ratification until 1972. The march supported bill H.J.R. 638, to extend E.R.A.’s deadline to March 22, 1979. Only eight votes by white male state senators in three states had kept the E.R.A. from being ratified by March 1, 1977.
- July 9, 1983 – Lucia Micarelli born, American violinist of Italian and Korean heritage; best known for her collaborations with singer-songwriter Josh Groban and the classic rock band Jethro Tull. Micarelli was the concertmaster with the Trans-Siberian Orchestra (TSO) in 2003, and released her first album, Music From a Farther Room, in 2004.
- July 9, 1986 – New Zealand’s Homosexual Law Reform Act legalizes homosexuality.
- July 9, 1987 – Rebecca Sugar born, American animator, producer, and songwriter; the first woman animator to independently create a series for a network, the Cartoon Network series Steven Universe, which first aired in 2013. She was previously a writer and storyboard artist on the network’s Adventure Time series (2010-2013). She has been nominated five times for Primetime Emmy Awards.
- July 9, 2013 – Michelle Knight, Amanda Berry and Gina DeJesus, who were kidnapped, held captive in a Cleveland house and raped for over ten years, release a video. In their first public statement since their escape, they thank the many supporters for “such an outpouring of love and kindness.” The Courage Fund, established to help them, had already raised over $1 million.
Amanda Berry — Gina DeJesus — Michelle Knight
- July 9, 2018 – China announces that the poet Liu Xia, who had been under house arrest and 24-hour surveillance since 2010 when her husband, author and activist Liu Xiaobo, won the Nobel Peace Prize, is to be allowed to leave the country for Berlin, Germany. She has never been charged with a crime. The announcement came just days before the one-year anniversary of Liu Xiaobo’s death from liver cancer while serving an 11-year sentence for “inciting subversion of state power.” His arrest and incarceration set off world-wide protests and appeals for his release.
Liu Xiaobo and Liu Xia
- July 9, 2019 – British Members of Parliament voted resoundingly to extend same-sex marriage and access to abortion to Northern Ireland, bringing the region into line with the rest of the UK on the two significant social issues. The two historic votes, arriving within little more than a quarter of an hour of each other, were greeted ecstatically by equalities campaigners. With ministers promising to respect the results, they could have vital repercussions for people in Northern Ireland. Both were the culmination of long campaigns by backbench Labour MPs, who said the government’s argument that the changes could only be made by the devolved Northern Irish government was defunct, given it has been suspended amid political deadlock since the start of 2017. The changes came via amendments to an otherwise technical government bill connected to budgets and elections for the devolved assembly. In the first amendment from Labour MP Conor McGinn, a longstanding campaigner for equal marriage in Northern Ireland, the Commons voted 383 to 73 to extend it to the region. In a vote soon afterwards, MPs approved an amendment by another Labour MP, Stella Creasy, to extend abortion rights to Northern Ireland, the only part of the UK where it remains illegal. The vote was passed by 332 to 99. Creasy’s amendment argued that abortion laws in Northern Ireland, where women seeking a termination can face life imprisonment, were contrary to international human rights norms. “How much longer are the women of Northern Ireland expected to wait?” she told MPs. “How much more are they expected to suffer before we speak up – the best of what this place does – as human rights defenders, not human rights deniers?” After the vote, Creasy tweeted: “Thank you to everyone who today stood up for equality in Northern Ireland – whether for same-sex marriage or abortion, today we have said everyone in the UK deserves to be treated as an equal. There’s a road to go yet but today a big step forward.”
- July 9, 2020 – Gender Avenger, a non-profit that focuses on gender balance at all levels of government and business, updated their GA Tally app, a tool to track the representation of women on panels and at other public forums, putting more emphasis on tracking participation by women of color. Founder Gina Glantz says, “Always begin with the numbers” to see who is at the table and who is heard. Also in the news, New American Leaders, a nonprofit which mentors first-time candidates for public office who are first or second generation immigrants, published a report on state legislatures: as of 2020, 81% of the 7,383 state legislators in the U.S. are White, and over 71% are male.
- July 9, 2021 – In the UK, a new, more comfortable way of detecting breast cancer, which could enable tumours to be identified at an earlier stage, has entered trials. Mammograms are less effective in detecting early stages of cancer in young women because their breasts contain more dense, fibrous tissue and less fat than post-menopausal women, making it harder to distinguish between cancers and fibrous tissue. This technique, called multiparametric MRI, was originally developed to evaluate liver diseases without the need for a painful biopsy, and is already in widespread use across Europe and the US. Like conventional MRI, it uses strong magnetic fields and radiowaves to excite particles called protons in the tissue, using differences in the amount of time they take to settle to create a “map” of the various tissues in the breast. However, by combining images created by different MR pulses and sequences, multiparametric MRI enables an even more detailed map to be created. “We believe if you differentiate the tissue, instead of looking at the blood vessels around the tumour, we should be able to spot not only tumours in dense breasts, but potentially tumours which aren’t seen on mammograms,” said Professor Sally Collins, a consultant obstetrician and medical lead for women’s health at the Oxford-based Perspectum Diagnostics, who herself recently underwent treatment for breast cancer.
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- July 10, 1553 – Lady Jane Grey, nominated in his will by the dying boy, King Edward VI, as his successor in preference to his Catholic half-sister Mary, begins her nine day reign as Queen of England and Ireland.
Miniature portrait thought to be Lady Jane Grey
- July 10, 1724 – Eva Ekeblad born, Swedish countess, salon host, agronomist, and scientist; known for discovering a method to make flour and alcohol from potatoes, transforming potatoes from an exotic food grown only in the greenhouses of the aristocracy to a staple food of Sweden, significantly reducing the country’s incidence of famine; first woman to become a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1748.
- July 10, 1875 – Mary McLeod Bethune born to former slaves, American educator and civil rights leader; Literary and Industrial Training School for Negro Girls founder (which becomes Bethune-Cookman University); president (1917-1925) of the Florida chapter of the National Association of Colored Women; registered black voters in spite of threats from the Ku Klux Klan, and became NACW national president in 1924. During her tenure, NACW became the first black-controlled organization to have headquarters in Washington DC. In 1935, she founded the National Council of Negro Women, and became a full-time staff member of the National Youth Administration in 1936, then became Director of the NYA’s Division of Negro Affairs in 1938, and was an advisor to President Franklin Roosevelt and Eleanor Roosevelt.
- July 10, 1882 – Ima Hogg born; in spite of her cruel naming by her father, Texas governor Jim Hogg, she became a leader of Texas society, well-known and respected as a philanthropist and patron of the arts. She established and managed the Houston Symphony Orchestra, and was president of the Symphony Society. She founded the Houston Child Guidance Center, the Hogg Foundation for Mental Health, and sat on the Houston School Board, where she worked to remove gender and race criteria from teacher and staff pay, and started art education programs for black students. She was also a savior of many historic buildings.
- July 10, 1884 – Harriet Wiseman Elliott born, American educator and public official, Dean of Women at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro; Chair of the Woman’s Division of the U.S. War Finance Committee, Deputy Director of the U.S. Office of Price Administration, and United States delegate to UNESCO.
- July 10, 1891 – Edith Hinkley Quimby born, American medical researcher and physicist, pioneer in nuclear medicine; developed diagnostic and therapeutic applications of X-rays, and instituted protections for both the technicians and the patients from overexposure to radioactive materials, assuring the use of the lowest dose possible to achieve results; in 1940, she was the first woman honored with the Janeway Medal by the American Radium Society; awarded the 1941 Gold Medal of the Radiological Society of North America; she was also one of the first members of the American Association of Physicists in Medicine.
- July 10, 1896 – Thérèse Casgrain born, Canadian feminist, reformer and politician, leader in the women’s suffrage movement as a founder of the Provincial Franchise Committee for the emancipation of women, hosted the radio show Fémina in the 1930s; the first woman to lead a political party in Canada, the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF), ancestor of the current New Democratic Party.
- July 10, 1905 – Mildred Wirt Benson born, American journalist and author of 23 of the 30 original Nancy Drew mysteries (the series was written by various authors but all the books were published under “Carolyn Keene”).
- July 10, 1910 – Mary Bunting born, microbiologist, president of Radcliffe College (1959-72); oversaw the integration of Radcliffe into Harvard, founded Bunting Institute at Radcliffe, helped women return to careers after family obligations, first woman on the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission.
- July 10, 1916 – Judith Jasmin born, Canadian journalist and radio host, founding member of the Mouvement laïque de langue française (“The Francophone Secular Movement”).
- July 10, 1921 – Eunice Kennedy Shriver born, American activist, founder of Camp Shriver which evolved into the Special Olympics, long time advocate for children with disabilities, recipient of many awards and honors including the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
- July 10, 1922 – Jean Kerr born, American author and playwright, wrote the bestseller Please Don’t Eat the Daisies.
- July 10, 1929 – Winnie Ewing born, Scottish lawyer and Scottish National Party politician; served as a Member of the UK Parliament (1967-1979), the European Parliament (1979-1999), and the Scottish Parliament (1999-2003); President of the Scottish National Party (1987-2005).
- July 10, 1930 – Janette Sherman born, American physician, toxicologist, author, and activist for bans on nuclear power and dangerous chemicals. She researched nuclear radiation, pesticides, birth defects, breast cancer, and illnesses caused by toxins in homes, and was a pioneer in the field of occupational and environmental health. Sherman was an expert witness or consultant in 5,000 workers' compensation cases about deadly chemicals, contaminated water, and toxic pesticides. In the 1970s, during her practice of internal medicine in Detroit, she recognized common profiles in patients that became the basis of clinical research, and led a campaign and lawsuits over the occupational source of illnesses among her patients in the automobile industry, leading to development of regulations for greater protection of the workers, and the banning of certain chemicals from the workplace. Among the largest collections of medical-legal files in the U.S., her records are preserved at the National Library of Medicine at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. She was also an oncology professor at Wayne State University. Author of Chemical Exposure and Disease: Diagnostic and Investigative Techniques (1988); Life’s Delicate Balance: Causes and Prevention of Breast Cancer (2000); and was the editor of Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment (2007).
- July 10, 1931 – Alice Munro born, Canadian author, known for her short stories, recipient of many awards and honors including Canada’s Governor General’s Award, the Man Booker International Prize, and the 2013 Nobel Prize for Literature.
- July 10, 1931 – Julian May born, American science fiction, fantasy, and children’s author; she used several pen names, including Lee N. Falconer and Ian Thorne; best known for her two series, Saga of Pliocene Exile and Galactic Milieu. She died at age 86 in 2017.
- July 10, 1933 – Jan DeGaetani born, versatile mezzo-soprano and outstanding teacher at Aspen Music Festival and Eastman School in Rochester.
- July 10, 1939 – Mavis Staples born, African American rhythm-and-blues and gospel singer, and civil rights activist. Her 2010 album, You Are Not Alone, won a Grammy for Best Americana Album.
- July 10, 1943 – Inonge Mbikusita-Lewanika born, Zambian politician; Republic of Zambia Ambassador to the U.S. (2003-2008); Zambian special envoy to the African Union (2001-2003); Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) Member of Zambian Parliament (1991-2001); UNICEF regional advisor for Africa (?-1991).
- July 10, 1949 – Anna Czerwińska born, Polish mountaineer and author; she is the first Polish woman to reach the Seven Summits, and at age 50, she became the oldest woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest. She and Krystyna Palmowska were the first women to climb the North Face of the Matterhorn in the Alps.
- July 10, 1959 – Ellen Kuras born, American cinematographer and filmmaker; one of the first women members of the American Society of Cinematographers; known for her cinematography work on Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and her directorial debut, The Betrayal, which won a Primetime Emmy Award for Non-Fiction Filmmaking, and was nominated for a 2009 Oscar for Best Documentary Feature.
- July 10, 1966 – Anna Bråkenhielm born, Swedish publisher and television producer; owner and CEO of Passion for Business magazine; CEO of Strix Television and Silverback productions.
- July 10, 1967 – Gillian Tett born, British journalist and finance columnist for the Financial Times, one of the first to warn that a financial crisis was looming in 2007.
- July 10, 1999 – U.S. women’s soccer team wins the FIFA Women’s World Cup at Pasadena’s Rose Bowl in California, defeating China 5-4. The final was watched by 90,185 spectators, a new world record for attendance at a women’s sporting event.
- July 10, 2019 – The Democratic majority House passed a bill seeking to remove wording in a U.S. law that describes a president as male. H.R. 3285, dubbed the "21st Century President Act," would change a federal law that makes it a crime to threaten the president and first family. The current law defines the president as male and the president's spouse as female. The new bill would replace references to the president's "wife" and "widow" to "spouse" and "surviving spouse." Representative Mark Pocan (D-Wisconsin), an openly gay congressman who is co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said the new wording was necessary to reflect modern reality. "Currently federal law does not reflect the reality we could have a female or a gay president as soon as 2021," Pocan said. As of June 15, 2022, it still hadn’t passed.
- July 10, 2019 – Support for legal abortion tied the record highest level of support in a newly released Washington Post-ABC News poll. 60% of the survey's respondents said abortion should be legal in most or all cases, up from 55% in a similar poll in 2013. 36% of respondents said abortion should be illegal in all or most cases. That figure tied a record low. Support for legal abortion rose by 16 percentage points to 71% among independent women voters, and by 12 points to 77% among Democrats. 41% percent said their states shouldn't make it harder or easier for women to get abortions. 32% percent said their states should make abortion access easier, while 24% said their states should make it harder.
- July 10, 2020 – U.S. servicewomen went public with their own stories of sexual assault after the brutal murder of Vanessa Guillén, a 20-year-old U.S. Army Private, made national headlines. She had told her family she had been sexually harassed by a sergeant at Fort Hood before she went missing in April. Her remains were not found until the end of June. The girlfriend of Spc. Aaron Robinson said in an affidavit that he had killed Guillén with a hammer, then she had helped him dismember and burn Guillén’s body. Robinson shot himself when police officers approached him on July 1, 2020. Two former servicewomen told their stories of sexual abuse and how their reports were mishandled by authorities, prompting Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden to call for the military to change how it handles reports of sexual misconduct. Under increasing pressure, Secretary of the Army Ryan McCarthy ordered an "independent and comprehensive" review of the command climate at Fort Hood. In December 2020, McCarthy announced at a press briefing that 14 “senior officers” from corps to squad level were disciplined for multiple “leadership failures.” The investigation found that there was a "permissive environment for sexual assault and sexual harassment at Fort Hood," and a new investigation was launched into the 1st Cavalry Divisions command climate and its program for preventing and responding to sexual harassment and assault. McCarthy said Guillén’s murder "shocked our conscience and brought attention to deeper problems" at Fort Hood and across the Army more widely. He said it "forced us to take a critical look at our systems, our policies, and ourselves." A 150 page report by the Fort Hood Independent Review Committee found that not only was the climate at Fort Hood tolerant of sexual harassment and assault, and but other crimes were committed at a high rate. Chris Swecker, head of the review team, said, “This is a military installation — it’s a gated community, and there are a lot of tools that you can use to suppress crime. What we found was that there was no proactive efforts to suppress crime, to address drug issues, to address violent crime, and suicides are extremely high. What we found was that because [the local Criminal Investigation Command detachment] was so inexperienced and so taxed for resources, they really didn’t dive deep on suicides to find out why.” In March, 2021, a new policy was put out by Army Forces Command, which covers all active-duty personnel, that “ensuring investigations are conducted by an outside investigator will aid in building trust and confidence in the sexual harassment/assault response and prevention reporting system.” Sexual assault and harassment have plagued the military for decades. Recent reports from the RAND Corporation found that service members are more likely to leave the military after being assaulted and that units that were lax about sexual harassment experienced more assault. The reports said both were readiness issues and hurt the military’s ability to retain top talent. As one of his first acts in office in 2021, incoming Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin mandated a commission on sexual assault. The Independent Review Commission on Sexual Assault in the Military finished its work in the fall of 2021 and issued 82 recommendations.
Vanessa Guillén — Rising rates of sexual assault in the US military 2010-2019
- July 10, 2021 – In Spain, a growing number of winemakers are women, including Almudena Alberca, who became Spain’s first female master of wine in 2018. María Vargas of the Marqués de Murrieta bodega, became one of the very few – male or female – whose wine has been awarded 100 points by wine guru Robert Parker, but Anne Cannan, oenologist at Clos Figueras in Priorat, says that it’s still the men who get all the attention and win most of the prizes. This is one reason why she helps organise an annual fair of Priorat’s female winemakers and supports groups such as Mujeres del Vino. “It’s a bit like we’re saying, hey, we’re here and we’re making wine,” Cannan says. “People don’t realise that there are so many women making wine … But when you say, let’s have a women-only wine group, there are those who say, oh no, I’m not a feminist, because they worry about what people will think. We’ve got a long way to go in Spain before women really have confidence in themselves.”
Almudena Alberca — María Vargas — Anne Cannan
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- July 11, 1746 – Baroness Frederika von Riedesel born as Frederika Charlotte von Massow, German writer. Called Charlotte by her family, in 1762, at age 16, she married Freidrich Riedesel of Brunswick after he was wounded and she helped nurse him back to health. He became a general, and Charlotte and their children followed him to America in 1777, where he was serving on the British side during the Saratoga Campaign in the American Revolutionary War. She kept a journal of the campaign, where she recorded witnessing several battles, tending wounded soldiers, and escaping a fire in the house where she was staying with her daughters. With other women and children, and wounded soldiers, Charlotte and her girls sheltered in the cellar of Marshall House outside Saratoga. The house had been badly damaged by American cannon fire, and she became the group’s leader. A German soldier described her as an "angel of comfort" who "restored order in the chaos." Following the British surrender on October 17, 1777, Charlotte and her daughters became the guests of American General Philip Schuyler, until they traveled with the defeated army to Boston, where they were to sail back to Europe. The terms of surrender were rejected by Continental Congress, however, and they spent the next four years as prisoners of war, first in Cambridge, Massachusetts, then in November, 1778, they were marched south to Charlotteville, Virginia. Her husband became ill, and Charlotte spent her time there nursing him. In 1779, the Riesdesels were allowed to move to New York City, where she gave birth to a fourth daughter they named America, and the family survived an outbreak of smallpox, thanks to her nursing. Finally, in July, 1781, the family was allowed to go to Canada, and from there sailed home to Germany. General Riedesel died in 1800, and Charlotte published her journals. Her book became an important first-hand account of the Saratoga Campaign. Baroness Riedesel died at age 61 on March 29, 1808, in Berlin.
- July 11, 1850 – Annie Armstrong born, American lay Southern Baptist leader; co-founder and first correspondent secretary (de facto leader – 1888-1906) of the Women’s Missionary Union, which was forged in spite of fierce opposition by male Southern Baptist leaders; she worked tirelessly as an advocate for missionaries, especially those in the U.S. and Canada, telling their stories and raising funds to support their missions.
- July 11, 1851 – Millie and Christine McCoy born into slavery in North Carolina; American twins, conjoined at the lower spine and standing at about a 90 degree angle from each other. As slaves, they were exhibited until after the Civil War, when the freed twins received an education, learning five languages, dancing, and music, and had a successful career as “The Two-Headed Nightingale” with the Barnum Circus until their deaths at age 61 in 1912 from tuberculosis.
- July 11, 1871 – Edith Rickert born, American author and influential medieval scholar at the University of Chicago; notable for her works on Chaucer. She worked as a Cryptographer for the U.S. government in Washington DC during World War I.
- July 11, 1881 – Isabel Martin Lewis born, American astronomer; first woman hired by the U.S. Naval Observatory as an assistant astronomer; elected in 1918 as a member of the American Astronomical Society; after the birth of her son, she worked part-time at the observatory, but wrote three books and countless articles to popularize astronomy and earth science, including a monthly column for thirty years in the American Nature Association’s Nature Magazine (not the same as the journal Nature). She returned to full-time work when her husband died in 1927, and was promoted to Assistant Scientist, then in 1930 to the rank of Astronomer; specialized in eclipses, contributing a faster and more accurate method of determining where an eclipse would be visible, and of the moon’s occultations. She went on solar eclipse expeditions to Russia in 1936 and to Peru in 1937, and retired from the Naval Observatory in 1951, but continued to write articles for newspapers and magazines; she had of one the longest and most successful careers of any woman astronomer in the first half of the 20th century.
- July 11, 1894 – Erna Mohr born, German zoologist, long associated with the Zoological Museum Hamburg, where she started as a volunteer (1914-1934), then later became department head of the Fish Biology Department (1934-1936), then the Department of Higher Vertebrates (1936-1946), and finally Curator of the Vertebrate Department (1946-1968?); made contributions to ichthyology and mammalogy, producing over 400 publications; first woman to be elected as an Honorary Member of the American Society of Mammalogists.
- July 11, 1901 – Gwendolyn ‘Madame Liz’ Lizarraga born, Belizean businesswoman, women’s rights activist, and politician; founder of the United Women’s Group in 1959, with 900 members initially, to empower women culturally, economically, and politically; co-founder of the United Women’s Credit Union. She helped women to become “property owners” (then a requirement for voters) by surveying and mapping parcels in the swamps and registering them with the Lands department. In 1961, women were allowed to run for the first time in the national elections, and Lizarraga won her race with 69% of the vote, becoming the first woman elected to the British Honduras Legislative Assembly (1961-1974 – now Belize House of Representatives), she was the first woman appointed as a government minister, the Minister of Education, Housing and Social Services. In 1969, Lizarraga spearheaded a low-cost housing project, and spoke out against granting casino concessions. She collected folklore and music, helping to revive the Mestizada dances. She was also a chess player, and one of the organizers of the first Belize chess club.
- July 11, 1905 – Betty Allan born, Australian statistician and biometrician; after earning a bachelor’s degree in mathematics at the University of Melbourne in 1926, she obtained her master’s in 1928 for her work with Professor John Henry Michell on solitary waves on liquid-liquid interfaces. She got a scholarship to Newnham College, Cambridge, where she worked on agricultural statistics. In 1930, she returned to Australia, and worked as a biometrician in the Division of Plant Industry of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO). CSIRO had been founded in 1916, but was hampered by lack of funding until 1926, so she began her work just as it was expanding its programs. She was the first statistician at CSIRO, and the “effective founder of the CSIRO Division of Mathematics and Statistics.” Allan also taught a Canberra University College and Australian Forestry School. In 1935, she helped found the Australian Institute of Agricultural Science. In 1940, she married CSIRO botanist Patrick Joseph Calvert, and was forced to retire at age 35 by the laws of the time, which banned married women from public service. She died in 1952 at age 47.
- July 11, 1906 – Grace Mae Brown, a worker in the factory of the Gillette Skirt Company in Cortland NY, who became pregnant during an affair with the owner’s nephew, Chester Gillette, was taken by him to Big Moose Lake in the Adirondacks, where he registered at the hotel under a false name, took her out on the lake in a rowboat, then struck her on the head so she fell out of the boat and drowned. His trial and conviction attracted national attention, inspiring Theodore Dreiser to write An American Tragedy, in which he uses some direct quotes from Grace Brown’s love letters.
- July 11, 1918 – Venetia Burney born, English girl credited by Clyde Tombaugh with suggesting Pluto as the name for his 1930 discovery when she was 11 years old. The asteroid 6235 Burney and Burney Crater on Pluto were named in her honour. In July 2015 the New Horizons spacecraft was the first to visit Pluto and carried an instrument named Venetia Burney Student Dust Counter in her honour. As an adult, she taught economics and mathematics at girls’ schools in the London area.
- July 11, 1928 – Andrea Veneracion born, Filipina choirmaster, founder of the Philippine Madrigal Singers in 1963, which won major awards in international competition; founding choirmaster and first conductor of the Asian Institute for Liturgy and Music Chorale; 1999 Philippine National Artist for Music.
- July 11, 1938 – Laurel Thatcher Ulrich born, historian, author of A Midwife’s Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard based on her diary, 1785–1812 and Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History.
- July 11, 1944 – Patricia Polacco born, American author and illustrator of over 60 books, mostly for children; Thank You, Mr. Falker, The Lemonade Club, Mr. Lincoln’s Way and The Mermaid’s Purse.
- July 11, 1946 – Sarah Blaffer Hrdy born, primatologist and author, studied evolution of primate social behavior, especially the role of females and mothers in evolution; The Woman Who Never Evolved, Mothers and Others.
- July 11, 1953 – Patricia Reyes Spíndola born, Mexican actress, director, and teacher; she was awarded four Ariel Awards by the Mexican Academy of Cinematographic Arts (AMACC), two for Best Actress, and two for Best Supporting Actress. She is known to U.S. audiences for playing Matilde Kahlo, in the biographical film, Frida. In the 200s, she began directing Mexican telenovelas, including 85 episodes of La mujer del Vendaval (2012-2013). She and her sister, Marta Reyes Spindola, run M& M Studio, where Patricia also teaches. In 2011, she was diagnosed with breast cancer and went through a successful mastectomy. In April 2015, she released her book called La vuelta da muchas vidas (The Return Gives Many Lives).
- July 11, 1954 – Julia King born, Baroness Brown of Cambridge, British engineer, PhD in fracture mechanics; crossbench Life Peer member of the House of Lords since 2015.
- July 11, 1960 – Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird is published.
- July 11, 1967 – Jhumpa Lahiri born in London, daughter of Bengali Indian emigrants, moved to the U.S. when she was two; American author and professor of creative writing at Princeton; her debut short story collection Interpreter of Maladies won the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
- July 11, 1994 – Nina Nesbitt born, Scottish singer-songwriter who plays guitar, piano, and flute, best known for her 2013 single “Stay Out.” She participated in the mothers2mothers fundraiser which raised half a million pounds to support pregnant women and new mothers who are living with HIV, and attended the Women in the World Summit, discussing the impact of social media on body image.
- July 11, 2017 – A growing number of women in Iran, by not wearing a hijab while driving, have sparked a national debate about whether a car is a private space where they can dress more freely. Obligatory wearing of the hijab has been an integral policy of the Islamic republic since the 1979 revolution, but it is one the establishment has had a great deal of difficulty enforcing. Many Iranian women are already pushing the boundaries, and observers in Tehran say women who drive with their headscarves resting on their shoulders, called by opponents a “bad hijab,” are becoming a familiar sight. Even though the police regularly stop these drivers, fining them or even temporarily seizing their vehicle, such acts of resistance have continued, infuriating hardliners over a long-standing policy they have had a great deal of difficulty enforcing. Iran’s president, Hassan Rouhani, has argued that people’s private space should be respected and opposes a crackdown on women who don’t wear the hijab. He said explicitly that the police’s job is not to administer Islam. While judicial authorities and the police have opposed the idea that the inside of a car is a private space, many in Iran do believe it is. Local media often refrain from directly criticising the mandatory hijab, but the debate over what constitutes a private space has allowed newspapers and even state news agencies to publish articles reflecting views from both sides. Hossein Ahmadiniaz, a lawyer, said that infringing on people’s private spaces was like infringing their citizen’s rights, arguing that it was up to parliamentarians to define the private space, not the police. “The law says that the space within a car is a private space,” he said. “The government’s citizen’s rights charter [launched by Rouhani] also considers a car to be a private space and it is incumbent upon enforcers to respect that.” He says wearing a so-called “bad hijab” is not a crime under Iranian law. But Saeid Montazeralmahdi, a spokesperson for the Iranian police, disagreed. “What is visible to the public eye is not private space and norms and the rules should be respected within cars.” He also warned car owners against using tinted glass to prevent onlookers from seeing into the car.
- July 11, 2020 – British Labour MP Dawn Butler was forced to close down her constituency office in Willesden, North London, after an escalation of violent racist threats and verbal abuse, including bricks thrown the through the windows. Speaking to The Observer newspaper, Butler said, “We had no choice. The safety of my four staff members, which include a black male and black female, is paramount and even though we have mostly been working from home in lockdown, it is clear we could no longer operate from there.” She added, “It got really bad after Brexit and again now since the death of George Floyd.” Throughout her 15 years as a Labour member of parliament, she has faced a significant level of racist abuse, including once being escorted out from a members’ room in the Houses of Parliament by a police officer who didn’t believe she was an MP, in spite of her colleagues vouching for her. In 2019, she was attacked on the London tube by a member of her constituency who threatened to kill her, but when she raised the incident with parliament, “I was told that the abuse I was receiving wasn’t enough to warrant any special security measures. I was really nervous about travelling and anxious about taking public transport after that attack. How much abuse do I have to get before it was enough?” She understands why the party is losing support with young black, Asian, and minority ethnic voters: “I don’t blame anyone for being unforgiving and uncompromising in this moment. Young black people are seeking meaningful change and commitment and nothing less will do. I completely endorse that. The Labour party is an anti-racist party but it has to prove that. It’s not something that is a given, it is something that has to be re-earned.” Keir Starmer, leader of the Labour Party, tweeted after the attacks on her office, “I have spoken to @DawnButlerBrent to offer the Labour Party’s full support and solidarity. The racist abuse that Dawn and her staff have suffered is appalling. Dawn’s voice is vital. The racism that our Black MPs face has no place in society.”
- July 11, 2021 – UN Women was preparing to open “A Force for Change,” its first all-Black, all-women global selling exhibition and auction on July 27, 2021 in New York City, with an online action July 16-30 hosted on Artsy.
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- July 12, 1879 – Margherita Piazzola Beloch born, Italian mathematician; fields of study were algebraic geometry, photogrammetry, and algebraic topology; notable for her work on birational transformations in space, contributions to the theory of skew algebraic curves, and the topological properties of algebraic curves.
- July 12, 1895 – Kirsten Flagstad born, Norwegian soprano, ranked among the greatest singers of the 20th century, known for her roles in the operas of Wagner.
- July 12, 1911 – Johanna Moosdorf born in Leipzig, German writer and poet; her first volume of poetry was about to be published in the spring of 1933, but the publisher withdrew it from publication because her husband, Paul Bernstein, a political scientist and teacher, was also a Jew. He was banned from working, and they went through a pro forma divorce so that she could continue working, and provide for their two children. In 1944, Bernstein was sent to Theresienstadt, and then to Auschwitz where he was murdered shortly before the end of WWII. Moosdorf fled with the children to Sudetenland. After the war, she worked as a culture editor at the Leipziger Volkszeitung and became editor-in-chief of the literary newspaper März, but it was banned in 1948 because of western tendencies. She worked in a lignite combine and moved to West Berlin in 1950 because of the threat of political persecution. Since then she has lived as a freelance writer. She is best known for her novel Next Door, which was translated into English by Michael Glenny in 1964. She married again, but her second husband died in 1988, and she became house-bound because of an incurable eye disease. She died in obscurity in 2000 at age 88, but some of her books have recently been reprinted.
- July 12, 1918 – Dame Mary Glen-Haig born; British fencer, hospital administrator, and one of the first women to be a member of the International Olympic Committee (1982-2012). She fenced in four Olympics: 1948, 1952, 1956 and 1960. In the British Empire and commonwealth Games, she won two gold medals for Individual Foil. She was a district administrator of a hospital in West Kensington, London (1974-1982). Glen-Haig continued to fence into her 70s, and was chair of the Central Council of Physical Recreation in the 1970s. She appeared during the conclusion of the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, and was an ambassador for Britain at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. She died at age 96 in 2014.
- July 12, 1918 – Doris Grumbach born, American novelist, biographer, essayist, and co-owner of Wayward Books bookstore in Sargentville ME; literary editor of The New Republic (1972-1974); noted for novels about women, many with gay and lesbian themes, and her two memoirs: Coming into the End Zone, and Extra Innings.
- July 12, 1920 – Beah Richards born, American stage, film, and television actress, author, poet, playwright, civil rights activist, and pacifist; best known for her performances in the original Broadway productions of The Miracle Worker and A Raisin in the Sun, and the film Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner? But her remarkable poem, “A Black Woman Speaks of White Womanhood, of White Supremacy, of Peace” written in 1950, and first performed by her at the American People’s Peace Congress, has been nearly forgotten.
- July 12, 1928 – Pixie Williams born, New Zealand singer, of Māori descent, recipient of a triple platinum award from the Recording Industry Association of New Zealand for her “Blue Smoke” and a single platinum award for “Let’s Talk It Over.”
- July 12, 1938 – Eiko Ishioka born, Japanese art director, costume designer, and graphic designer known for her work in stage, screen, advertising, and print media. She won the 1992 Oscar for Best Costume Design for Bram Stoker’s Dracula, and was posthumously nominated for a Costume Design Oscar for her work in the 2012 film Mirror Mirror. Ishioka died of pancreatic cancer in 2012.
costume for ‘The Fall’ — Eiko Ishioka
- July 12, 1943 – Christine McVie born, British singer-songwriter and keyboardist, solo artist and member of Fleetwood Mac, inductee into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, recipient of the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors’ Gold Badge of Merit.
- July 12, 1944 – Delia Ephron born, American novelist, playwright, and screenwriter; co-author with her sister Nora of the play Love, Loss and What I Wore, which ran Off-Broadway for over 2 ½ years; her screenplays include The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, and You’ve Got Mail.
- July 12, 1944 – Arlene Raven born Arlene Rubin; feminist art historian, author, critic, and curator; co-founder in 1973 of the Feminist Studio Workshop with Judy Chicago and Sheila Levrant de Bretteville, which was housed in the Los Angeles Women’s Building. That year, she also co-founded the Center for Feminist Art Historical Studies with Ruth Iskin. She was an editor and co-founder of Chrysalis magazine. In 1976, Raven was a founding member of the Lesbian Art Project, and a founder of the Women’s Caucus for Art. In the 1980s she became the chief art critic for the Village Voice. In 2000, Raven became critic-in-residence at the Rinehart School of Sculpture at the Maryland Institute College of Art. She died of cancer in 2006 at age 62.
- July 12, 1951 – Joan B. Bauer born, American young adult author; noted for Squashed, and Rules of the Road, which was a Newbery Honor Book and won the Golden Kite Award.
- July 12, 1952 – Irina Bokova born, Bulgarian politician and diplomat; first woman Director-General of UNESCO (2009-2017); Bulgarian Minister of Foreign Affairs (acting/1996-1997), Bulgarian Ambassador to France and Monaco; advocate for gender equality, improved education, and preventing funding for terrorism, especially by enforcing protection of intellectual goods; firm opponent of racism and anti-Semitism; led UNESCO’s activities on Holocaust remembrance.
- July 12, 1958 – Tonya Williams born in London, American-Canadian actress, television producer, and director; in 2001, she became the founder, as well as the executive and artistic director, of the Reelwood Film Festival in Toronto, which showcases talent from ethnically diverse communities.
- July 12, 1962 – Joanna Shields born in America, Baroness Shields, British Conservative politician and Group CEO of BenevolentAI; Life peer in the House of Lords since 2014; Prime Minister’s Special Representative on Internet Safety (2016-2018); Under-Secretary of State Minister for Internet Safety & Security (2015-2017). In 2014, she founded WePROTECT, an initiative to facilitate internet companies cooperatively developing technology to combat online child abuse and exploitation. In 2016, it merged with other stakeholders to form WePROTECT Global Alliance to End Child Sexual Exploitation Online.
- July 12, 1969 – Chantal Jouanno born, French UDI (center-right) politician and former French karate champion: French Senator for Paris since 2011; French Minister of Sports (2010-2011); French Minister for Ecology (2009-2010).
- July 12, 1969 – Anne-Sophie Pic born, French chef; the fourth woman to win three Michelin stars, for her family’s restaurant, Maison Pic, in Valance, in Southern France.
- July 12, 1970 – Aure Atika born in Portugal to Moroccan-Jewish parents, French actress, screenwriter, and director; noted for directing À quoi ça sert de voter écolo? (What’s the point of voting Green?), which won the 2004 Prix de la Fondation Beaumarchais for best short film, De l’amour (On Love), and On ne badine pas avec Rosette (Don’t Mess with Rosette).
- July 12, 1971 – Loni Love born, African American comedian, actress, author, and a host on the talk show The Real since 2013. She switched from electrical engineering to music engineering, then won a $50 prize in a stand-up comedy competition, and played clubs while keeping her day job at Xerox, becoming a regular at the Laugh Factory in Los Angeles. After eight years at Xerox, Love resigned during a layoff to prevent someone else from losing their job, and pursued comedy full-time.
- July 12, 1972 – Shirley Chisholm receives 152 votes in the first ballot at the Democratic National Convention, becoming the first black person to receive convention votes for President of the United States at a major political party convention, and the first woman to run for the Democratic presidential nomination.
- July 12, 1979 – Brooke Baldwin born, American television journalist and news anchor; joined CNN in 2008 to anchor CNN Newsroom with Brook Baldwin. In 2017, she hosted the American Woman series, which featured Sheryl Crow, Betty White, Ava DuVernay, Diane von Fürstenberg, Issa Rae, Ashley Graham, Tracy Reese, and Pat Benatar.
- July 12, 1984 – Democratic presidential candidate Walter F. Mondale names New York Congresswoman Geraldine A. Ferraro his running mate, making her the first woman to run on a major party ticket.
- July 12, 1990 – Dobsonville shanty town women in Soweto, South Africa, strip to the waist and confront bulldozers in a vain attempt to stop the demolition of their homes ordered by government authorities. Dobsonville echoes the destruction of Sophiatown in Soweto between 1955 and 1960, (after passage of the Native Resettlement Act No. 19 of 1954) the forcible removal by police of over 60,000 residents, in spite of protests and violent confrontations.
- July 12, 1997 – Malala Yousafzai born, Pakistani universal education and human rights advocate; youngest person to win a Nobel Prize, as co-recipient of the 2014 Peace prize at age 17; she survived a Taliban assassination attempt in 2012, targeted because of her blog, written as ‘BBC Urdu’ and detailing the Taliban occupation of the Swat district of Pakistan, which received much attention after the NY Times made a documentary in 2010 about her.
- July 12, 2010 – Roman Polanski is declared a free man, no longer confined to house arrest in his Alpine villa, after Swiss authorities reject a U.S. request for the Oscar-winning director's extradition because of a 32-year-old conviction for sex with a minor, a 13-year-old girl. The five original charges against him were for rape by use of drugs, perversion, sodomy, a lewd and lascivious act upon a child under 14, and furnishing a controlled substance to a minor, but he accepted a plea bargain and pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor. Polanski fled from the U.S. in February, 1978, to avoid imprisonment and deportation. In 2018, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences belatedly voted to expel Polanski from its membership because of his conviction and flight from punishment, after awarding him a Best Director Oscar in 2002 for The Pianist.
- July 12, 2013 – On her 16th birthday, Malala Yousafzai addresses the United Nations, calling for universal access to education.
- July 12, 2018 – Billed as “the most comprehensive study yet” on sexual harassment in the sciences, a report from the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine in Washington DC confirms that sexual harassment is pervasive throughout academic science in the United States, driving talented researchers out of the field and harming others’ careers. Analysis concludes that policies to fight the problem are ineffective because they are set up to protect institutions, not victims — and that universities, funding agencies, scientific societies and other organizations must take stronger action. “The cumulative effect of sexual harassment is extremely damaging,” says Paula Johnson, president of Wellesley College in Massachusetts and co-chair of the committee that wrote the report. “It’s critical to move beyond the notion of legal compliance to really addressing culture.” The report found that the main mechanism for reporting sexual harassment on US campuses — Title IX, the federal law enacted in 1972 that outlaws discrimination on the basis of gender — has not reduced the incidence of sexual harassment. Institutions can find ways to comply with Title IX that avoid liability but don’t actually prevent harassment, says Asmeret Asefaw Berhe, a biogeochemist at the University of California, Merced. She is part of a national team working to train bystanders to intervene when they witness harassment, aiming to better prevent it. The report’s many recommendations include: that research institutions should act to reduce the power differential between students and faculty members, perhaps by introducing group-based advising; that the government should prohibit confidentiality in settlement agreements, so that harassers cannot switch jobs without their new employer knowing about past behavior; and that research organizations should treat sexual harassment at least as seriously as research misconduct.
Paula Johnson
- July 12, 2019 – Sadie Roberts-Joseph, age 75, founder of the Baton Rouge African American Museum, was discovered dead in the trunk of her car. She was an activist and an icon of her community. A man who was her tenant was arrested five days later, and in November, 2019, he was indicted for second degree murder.
- July 12, 2020 – In the UK, the LGBTQ+ charity Stonewall backed a new private member’s bill to add the gender-neutral ‘X’ to passports. The option had already been rolled out in Australia, Canada, and Germany. “There are hundreds of thousands of people in the UK who do not identify as exclusively male or female, but the Conservative government still refuses to give them the dignity of recognising their identities. Introducing an ‘X’ gender option on passports is a relatively small change that would make a big difference to so many people’s lives,” said Christine Jardine, the Liberal Democrats’ equalities spokeswoman, who introduced the bill in the Commons on July 14, which is International Non-Binary People’s Day. By 2021, it had completed the First Reading stage in the House of Commons, and passed on to the Second Reading stage, which is the first opportunity for MPs to debate the main principles of the bill. After that, it will reach the Committee stage, followed by the Report stage, and then the Third Reading, at the end of which the House votes on whether to approve the bill. In December, 2021, Britain’s Supreme Court, in a unanimous decision, rejected the gender-neutral ‘X’ passport, saying it would undermine a legal system that has been built on a clear male-female split. Christie Elan-Cane, who has been trying to get a passport with an ‘X’ instead of an ‘M’ or ‘F’ since 1995, said the case would be appealed to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) on the basis of a violation of the right to privacy.
- July 12, 2021 – In Edmonton, Canada, there have been a string of verbal and physical attacks, mostly on Black Muslim women, beginning in December, 2020. In June, 2021, two sisters wearing hijabs were attacked with a knife by a man shouting racial slurs at them. Other Muslim women have been threatened or knocked to the ground when out walking or waiting for public transportation, leaving many women afraid to leave their homes. By July, 2021, Edmonton police had responded to five incidents that led to suspects being charged with hate crimes, including the driver who ran over four members of a Muslim family with his car, killing them, in June 2021. But Muslim community advocates say incidents often go unreported. “We had a town hall meeting where many women came out and actually stated that they have previously been attacked with knives, they have been told to go back to their homes, they have experienced a lot of gender-based violence and hate-motivated crimes – it just went unreported,” Dunia Nur, president and co-founder of the African Canadian Civil Engagement Council, said. While out shopping, Nur had been told to “speak English” when she was overheard speaking Somali on the phone with her aunt, and the man initially blocked her path when she tried to leave the store to get away from him. Fortunately she was able to leave before it escalated.
Dunia Nur — African Canadian Civil Engagement Council
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- July 13, 1793 – Charlotte Corday stabs Jacobin leader Jean-Paul Marat in his bathtub. She is tried and executed on July 17. She insisted she carried out the assassination alone but believing that she had an accomplice who was a lover, her body is autopsied. She was found to be virgo intacta.
‘Marat’ portrait by Jacques-Louis David — Charlotte Corday painted just hours before her execution
- July 13, 1863 – Margaret Alice Murray born, British archaeologist, anthropologist, folklorist, and feminist. First woman appointed as a lecturer in archaeology in the UK, at London’s University College (1898-1935). Worked closely with Sir Flinders Petrie in Egyptology as his copyist-illustrator and assistant, discovering the Osireion temple at Abydos. Petrie gave her full credit for her work, but she encountered male prejudice from others, and joined the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU), as well as mentoring several promising women students. Wrote books on Egyptology for the general public. In later years, she got into academic hot water over her theories about Christian witch hunts and witch cults.
- July 13, 1875 – June Etta Downey born, American psychologist; first woman in the U.S. to head an academic department, founder of the psychology laboratory at the University of Wyoming in 1900. Her work in psychology gained national recognition and led to many changes in the field. Noted for studies of the psychology of aesthetics and related philosophical issues, and personality assessment.
- July 13, 1889 – Emma Asson born, Estonian politician, educator, and author, one of first women elected to Estonian parliament, contributed sections on education and gender equality to first constitution of Estonia, wrote first textbook in Estonian language.
- July 13, 1910 – Josefina Niggli born in Mexico, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, moved to U.S. after penning prize-winning short stories; novels Mexican Village (1945), Step Down, Elder Brother (1947), and later wrote television scripts during “Golden Age” of American TV.
- July 13, 1913 – Kay Linaker born, American actress, and screenwriter under the name Kate Phillips. Best known as an actress for her supporting role in Kitty Foyle, and as the co-author with Theodore Simonson of The Blob, the low-budget science fiction-horror movie that was Steve McQueen’s feature film debut. During WWII, she wrote for the Voice of America, and volunteered for the Red Cross. She died in 2008 at age 94.
- July 13, 1918 – Marcia Brown born, American children’s author and illustrator, won 3 Caldecott Medals for Cinderella, or the Little Glass Slipper (1954), Once a Mouse (1961) and Shadow (1982).
‘Shadow’ — Marcia Brown
- July 13, 1927 – Simone Veil born, French lawyer, magistrate, and politician; she worked in the Ministry of Justice, then served as the French Minister of Health (1974-1979). During her tenure, she wrote and championed the 1975 law, called the Veil law, that legalized abortion in France. “No woman resorts to an abortion with a light heart. One only has to listen to them: it is always a tragedy,” Veil said in a now-famous opening address on November 26, 1974, before a National Assembly almost entirely composed of men. “We can no longer shut our eyes to the 300,000 abortions that each year mutilate the women of this country, trample on its laws and humiliate or traumatise those who undergo them.” It passed in spite of heated debate. There were death threats against Veil, and swastikas spray-painted on her home. She was a member of the European Parliament (1979-1993) and the first woman to be chosen as its President (1979-1982). Veil was also a member of the Constitutional Council of France (1998). A Jewish survivor of Auschwitz-Birkenau and Bergen-Belsen, she lost her parents and a brother in the Holocaust. In 2008, Veil received the rare honor of a seat among the “immortals” – the state-sponsored body which oversees the French language and usage. Her ceremonial sword was engraved with the motto of the French Republic (Liberté, égalité, fraternité), that of the European Union (“United in diversity”), and the five digits tattooed on her forearm at Auschwitz, which she never removed. She died in 2017 at the age of 89.
- July 13, 1930 – Naomi Shemer born, Israeli singer-songwriter, known for the song Yerushlayim Shel Zahav (“Jerusalem of Gold”).
- July 13, 1935 – Monique Vézina born, Canadian politician, Quebec nationalist, and Progressive Conservative Parliament member; appointed as Minister of External Relations, and Minister responsible for La Francophonie, Minister for Employment and Immigration, and several other offices; retired from public service but remained active in the field of international development.
- July 13, 1948 – Catherine Breillat born, French filmmaker and novelist; her second film, Une Vraie Jeune Fille (A Real Young Girl), based on her novel Le Soupirail, was banned after its premiere, until 1999; in 2004, just months after suffering a stroke which left her partially paralyzed, Breillat went back to work on her film, Une vieille maîtresse (The Last Mistress), one of three French films officially selected for the 2007 Cannes Film Festival.
- July 13, 1959 – Fuziah Salleh born, Malaysian politician; Deputy Minister (2018-2020) in the Prime Minister’s Department for Religious Affairs; Vice president of People’s Justice Party (PKR – 2010-2014); PKR Central Political Bureau Member; Member of Parliament for Kuantan since 2008. Salleh has led the campaign to stop the Lynas Rare Earth Refinery in Kuantan since 2008, because of concerns about long-term waste management and possible contamination of surface water and atmosphere by radioactive waste material.
- July 13, 1961 – Tahira Asif born, Pakistani Muttahida Qaumi Movement politician; member of the National Assembly of Pakistan from 2013 until her assassination in June, 2014, by two armed men, while traveling with her daughter and driver in Lahore. Ataf Hussain, the head of MQM, her political party, said the assassins were religious extremists, and that Asif had not been provided with adequate security.
- July 13, 1966 – Natalia Luis-Bassa born, Venezuelan conductor who now works primarily in England; Musical Director of the Wellington College Symphony Orchestra and the Hallam Sinfonia; also works with the National Children’s Orchestra of Great Britain; she was the first person to earn a degree in Orchestral Conducting in Venezuela; former music director of the Orquesta Sinfónica de Falcón.
- July 13, 1984 – Ida Maria born as Ida Maria Sivertsen, Norwegian musician, guitar player, and songwriter; her songs have been used in films, TV shows, and video games. She has synesthesia, involuntary simultaneous stimulus of two senses – in her case, she sees colors as she hears music. When writing songs, she makes color sheets for all the chords.
- July 13, 2003 – A French DGSE (Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure) rescue attempt fails to liberate Columbian Senator Ingrid Betancourt. A French-Columbian political scientist who was the Oxygen Green Party’s candidate for the Columbian presidency in 2002, Betancourt, along with her campaign manager and driver, were kidnapped by FARC (Fuerza Armadas Revolucinarias de Columbia) in February 2002. The failed mission caused a scandal for the French government. Betancourt was finally rescued in July 2008, along with 14 other captives, after several other negotiation and rescue attempts had failed.
- July 13, 2016 – Conservative Party leader Theresa May succeeds David Cameron as United Kingdom Prime Minister.
- July 13, 2018 – Just days after disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein pleaded not guilty to new charges of sexual assault, he defended his actions as a mere symptom of an industry-wide problem. “Yes, I did offer them acting jobs in exchange for sex, but so did and still does everyone,” he claimed. “But I never, ever forced myself on a single woman.” Weinstein’s attorney later said that Weinstein “never said” such a thing. Weinstein has been accused of wrongdoing by dozens of women, and in May, he surrendered to police after being charged with two rape counts and one criminal sexual act against two women. He faced life in prison, but was free on $1 million bail. After convictions for one first-degree criminal sexual act, and third-degree rape, in May 2020, he was sentenced to 23 years in prison. “I’m not going to say these aren’t great people, I had wonderful times with these people, you know,” Weinstein said of his accusers. “It is just I’m totally confused and I think men are confused about all of these issues.”
- July 13, 2020 – Merin Oleschuk, a sociologist and Assistant Professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, wrote an article, cited by the CDC and the NIH, on the effects of Covid-19 on the productivity of academic women. Her research shows that the pandemic has disproportionately impacted women scholars. The gender inequalities which hinder women's academic careers are not new; systemic barriers and bias against women, disparities between men's and women's representation in faculty positions, publication rates, citations, recognition, and salaries that regularly favor men over women are well-documented. Women are also far more likely to carry the majority of the burden of caring for children, housework, and caring for the elderly. “Rising care demands created by COVID‐19—specifically those brought on by remote working, a lack of childcare, and the virus’ particular risk to aging populations—are disproportionately incurred by women and impede their ability to work. The starkness of gender differences in productivity and its visibility during this time provokes a rethinking of how faculty will be evaluated for tenure and promotion during the pandemic and beyond it. With or without a vaccine, the effects of this pandemic will reverberate for years to come, both in the physical disruptions brought on by intermittent lockdowns and school and daycare closures, as well as the psychological toll that regular isolation puts on individuals, children, and families ... The COVID‐19 pandemic serves as an opportunity and a provocation to rethink our established ways of evaluating academic success, to acknowledge and ameliorate systemic differences in its enactment. Doing so can help pave a more equitable path forward.” Data from journal submissions, preprint servers, and databases logging the initiation of new research projects shows that the proportion of submissions by STEM women, and especially those solely authored by women, dropped an estimated 19% during the spring of 2020 compared to the same period in 2019. In other academic fields, women authors made up 14.6% of new research submissions in Spring 2020, compared to 20% of submissions in Spring 2019.
- July 13, 2020 – The United Nations Human Rights Council adopted a resolution calling on Member States to take immediate and effective action to respond to all forms of violence against women and girls with disabilities, and to support and protect all victims and survivors, by fostering respect for the rights and dignity of persons with disabilities, promoting empowering portrayals of women and girls with disabilities and awareness-raising campaigns of their capabilities and contributions, and ensuring that sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights are fully realized, including for victims and survivors of sexual and gender-based violence.
- July 13, 2021 – In the UK, in 1982, Lynda Mann, age 15, was raped and strangled to death. In 1986, Dawn Ashworth, also age 15, was raped, savagely beaten, and strangled. In 1988, their killer became the first man convicted of murder on the basis of DNA evidence after admitting two murders, two rapes, two assaults, and conspiracy to pervert the course of justice. He was caught after the world’s first mass screening for DNA, when 5,000 men in three villages were asked to volunteer blood or saliva samples, although he initially evaded justice by getting a colleague to take the test for him. In June, 2021, the Parole Board ruled that the convicted rapist and killer, now age 61, could be released on licence, saying his behaviour in custody had been “positive and had included extensive efforts to help others.” The justice secretary, Robert Buckland, formally asked the Parole Board to reconsider the move on the grounds that there was an arguable case that the decision was “irrational.” On July 13, the Parole Board confirmed its decision. A spokesperson issued a statement, “The Parole Board has immense sympathy for the families of Dawn Ashworth and Lynda Mann and recognises the pain and anguish they have endured and continue to endure through the parole process. However, Parole Board panels are bound by law to assess whether a prisoner is safe to release. It has no power to alter the original sentence set down by the courts. Legislation dictates that a panel’s decision must be solely focused on what risk a prisoner may pose on release and whether that risk can be managed in the community.”
Lynda Mann and Dawn Ashworth
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- July 14, 1430 – The Burgundians remand Jeanne d’Arc (Joan of Arc) to Bishop Cauchon, of Beauvais.
‘The Capture of Joan of Arc’ - by Adolf Alexander Dillen
- July 14, 1795 – Eleanor Anne Porden born, British Romantic poet; best known for her epic poem, Cœur de Lion, or The Third Crusade, published in 1822. When the explorer John Franklin proposed to her, she made her acceptance conditional on his acquiescence to her continuing her career as a poet after their marriage. They wed in 1823, and she gave birth to a daughter in 1824, but childbirth accelerated the advance of the tuberculosis from which she suffered. She insisted that her husband not let his concerns for her health impeded his career, and he set off on his second Arctic Land expedition shortly before she died at age 29 in 1825.
- July 14, 1861 – Kate M. Gordon born, American women’s rights activist, daughter of parents who were both advocates of equality between the sexes. Gordon was a civic leader and prominent advocate of woman’s suffrage in the Southern U.S.; in 1896, she joined the Portia Club, a New Orleans women’s rights group, and became co-founder with her sister Jean of the Equal Rights Association Club; she was National American Woman Suffrage Association corresponding secretary (1901-1909); campaigned and raised funds for the first Louisiana hospital for the treatment of tuberculosis (1909-1913); organizer of the 1913 Southern States Woman Suffrage Conference, and headed the 1918 Louisiana suffrage campaign, the first statewide effort in the American South.
- July 14, 1862 – Florence Bascom born, American geologist; in 1893, she was the first woman to receive her Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University. She had to take her advanced classes inside a screen so the male students couldn’t see her. In 1895, she launched the geology department at Bryn Mawr College. Bascom was the first woman to work as a geologist for the U.S. Geological Survey (1896), the first woman to present a paper before the Geological Society of Washington (1901), and the first woman to be made a fellow of the Geological Society of America (1924). There wasn’t another woman elected to the society until after 1945. Bascom was an expert in crystallography, mineralogy, and petrography. She is known for inventing techniques that used microscopic analysis in the study of the oil-bearing rocks. Bascom died in 1945 at age 82.
- July 14, 1866 – Juliet Wytsman born, Belgian Impressionist painter, noted for her landscapes and gardens.
‘Paysage’ — by Juliette Wytsman
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July 14, 1868 – Gertrude Bell born, British author, archaeologist, explorer, mapmaker, public administrator, and spy; influential in the establishment of Jordan and Iraq; traveled extensively in Greater Syria, Mesopotamia, Asia Minor, and Arabia (1892-1913); in 1915, her knowledge of the region and fluent Arabic was tapped by British Army Headquarters in Cairo; during WWI, she was the only woman political officer in the British forces, given the title “Liaison Officer, Correspondent to Cairo,” then “Oriental Secretary”; she witnessed the horrors of the Armenian Genocide, reporting that in Damascus, “Turks sold Armenian women openly in the public market,” and in Ras al-Ain in Northern Syria, “the desert cisterns and caves were filled with corpses.” When the war ended, she was assigned to analyze the Mesopotamian situation – after ten months, she presented an official report entitled “Self Determination in Mesopotamia,” but British Commissioner Arnold Wilson wanted an Arab government “under the influence” of British officials who would have the real power and control. A compromise was reached, mainly due to the British government’s desire to cut costs in the Middle East: the British installed Faisal bin Hussein, a trusted ally who had commanded Arab forces with T.E. Lawrence, as the first King of the newly kludged-together nation of Iraq. Bell was an integral part of the Iraqi administration in its infancy, described as “one of the few representatives of His Majesty’s Government remembered by the Arabs with anything resembling affection.”
- July 14, 1911 – Gertrude Scharff Goldhaber born in Germany to a Jewish family; German-American physicist, an early researcher into nuclear structure and the properties of nuclei, the third woman to be elected to the National Academy of Sciences (1972). She fled to London in 1935, but lost both her parents in the Holocaust. In 1939, she married American physicist Maurice Goldhaber, and came to the U.S.
- July 14, 1916 – Muriel Snowden born, civil rights worker, co-founder with her husband of Freedom House (1949) in Boston, a community organization to promote self-sufficiency and social justice.
- July 14, 1917 – 16 women from National Women’s Party were arrested while picketing the White House demanding universal women’s suffrage; they were charged with “obstructing traffic.”
- July 14, 1929 – Jacqueline, Comtesse de Ribes, born, French aristocrat, ready-to-wear fashion designer, theatrical and television producer, philanthropist, and ecological activist; producer of the inaugural play at the Recamier Theatre in 1958, then managed the International Ballet of the Marquis de Cuevas after the death of the Marquis (1961-1966). She was co-producer in 1966 of a three-part series for French television, then co-produced Eurovision programs for UNICEF in the 1970s; in 1974 in the Balearic Islands, she became an early advocate for nature conservation and ecology, then orchestrated an international campaign to safeguard the migratory bird refuge on the island of Espalmaor.
- July 14, 1936 – Pema Chödrön born, Buddist nun, teacher, and author, notable figure in Tibetan Buddhism, possibly the first American woman to become a fully ordained Buddhist nun; notable for No Time to Lose: A Timely Guide to the Way of the Bodhisattva.
- July 14, 1940 – Susan Howatch born, English author and academic, noted for historical fiction and sweeping family sagas, including Penmarric, The Wheel of Fortune, and the Starbridge series about the Church of England.
- July 14, 1946 – Sue Lawley born, veteran English broadcaster; BBC Plymouth subeditor and freelance reporter (1970-1972); reporter/presenter on BBC news magazine Nationwide (1972-1975); anchor on nightly news programme Tonight (1975), then rejoined Nationwide as one of its two anchors (1976-1983); anchor on Six O’Clock News (1984-1989); introduces the BBC Radio 4 Reith Lectures.
- July 14, 1947 – Claudia J. Kennedy born, U.S Army officer; first woman to reach the rank of three-star general; she retired in 2000 after 31 years of military service, in the fields of intelligence and cryptology.
- July 14, 1953 – Martha Coakley born, American Democratic lawyer and politician; Attorney General of Massachusetts (2007-2015); District Attorney of Middlesex County (1999-2007).
- July 14, 1957 – Rawya Ateya takes her seat in Egypt’s National Assembly, the first female parliamentarian in the Arab world.
- July 14, 1960 – Jane Goodall begins her 55-year study of the chimpanzees at Gombe Stream Reserve.
- July 14, 1960 – Anna Bligh born, Australian politician; leader of the Queensland Labor Party (2007-2012); first woman Premier of Queensland (2007-2012); Member of Queensland Parliament for South Brisbane (1995-2012).
- July 14, 1960 – Jane Lynch born, American comedian, actress, and author; she spent 15 years in Chicago, acting in the Steppenwolf Theatre Company, and is known for playing Sue Sylvester in the TV musical comedy series Glee, and for appearing in the mockumentaries Best in Show, A Mighty Wind, and For Your Consideration. Lynch also performed off Broadway in Delia and Nora Ephron’s Love, Loss, and What I Wore, and on Broadway in revivals of Annie and Funny Girl. She wrote and starred in the award-winning play Oh Sister, My Sister, which was originally produced in 1998, and then was the inaugural production of the Lesbians in Theater program at the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center in 2004. Happy Accidents, her autobiography, was published in 2011. In 2021, she married longtime partner Jennifer Cheyne in Santa Barbara, California.
- July 14, 1962 – Vanessa Lawrence born, British geographer, public speaker, and first woman Director-General and Chief Executive of Ordnance Survey, Great Britain’s national mapping agency (2000-2014); Honorary Fellow of the Institution of Civil Engineering Surveyors and of the Royal Academy of Engineering; a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society; co-founder and inaugural chair of the Association of Chief Executives (ACE).
- July 14, 1976 – Kirsten Sheridan born, Irish film director and screenwriter; in 2003, she and her co-authors were nominated for both a Golden Globe and an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for the film In America. She wrote, directed, and edited several short films in the 1990s before directing her first feature-length film, Disco Pigs, released in 2001. She also directed the films August Rush (2007) and Dollhouse (2012).
- July 14, 2013 – An outdoor statue of Rachel Carson by artist David Lewis was dedicated in Waterfront Park in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. Carson is best-known for her book Silent Spring, published in 1962, which documented the harmful effects of indiscriminate use of pesticides. Though fiercely opposed by the chemical companies, the book became a rallying point for the nascent environmental movement, and her warning shaped public opinion, leading to the founding of the Environmental Protection Agency and the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act.
- July 14, 2018 – Andrea Hernandez, a 23-year-old Oregon woman, survived for a full week after her SUV crashed over a 200-foot cliff on California’s coast. Hernandez was driving to visit her sister when she went missing near Big Sur. Her family filed a missing person report, but she was ultimately discovered by hikers who happened to be in the area. Hernandez suffered a concussion and a shoulder injury, but authorities said she was able to walk and talk when they found her. While awaiting rescue, she used her car’s radiator hose to collect water from a stream to stay alive.
- July 14, 2020 – In Joliet, Illinois, over 700 nurses, members of the Illinois Nurses Association were in their second week of a strike at AMITA Health’s Saint Joseph’s Medical Center, demanding safe staffing levels amid the pandemic. The nurse’s union had been in negotiations with AMITA Health since February, and working without a contract since May 9, 2020. The nurses say their demands for better nurse-to-patient ratios have been met with illegal intimidation and threats of termination by management. By July 20, 2020, the nurses had approved a new contract. “While a majority of nurses voted for this contract, there are still many nurses who want to see more progress on safe staffing,” Pat Meade, a nurse at the hospital and one of the lead union negotiators, said in a news release. “We will continue the fight for safe staffing through enforcement of our contract and in Springfield.”
- July 14, 2021 – In an interview with German broadcaster Deutsche Welle (DW), former U.S. President George W. Bush was asked whether the withdrawal of U.S. and NATO troops from Afghanistan was a mistake. He replied: “You know, I think it is, because I think the consequences are going to be unbelievably bad … I’m afraid Afghan women and girls are going to suffer unspeakable harm.” The war in Afghanistan began under Bush after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the U.S. The Bush administration gave the Taliban leader, Mullah Omar, an ultimatum: hand over the al-Qaida leader, Osama bin Laden, and dismantle militant training camps or prepare to be attacked. Omar refused, and a U.S.-led coalition launched an invasion in October 2001.
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- July 15, 1401 – Jacqueline of Hainaut, Countess of Hainaut, Holland and Zeeland, born, the only legitimate offspring of William II, Duke of Bavaria, who was also William VI, Count of Holland. Her father spent much of his time after her birth attempting to establish her as his successor, but as a daughter, her rights were contested by her father’s younger brother, Bishop John of Liège, also known as John III the Pitiless, and a cousin, Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy. Her first marriage took place when she was 14, to John, Duke of Touraine, fourth son of King Charles VI of France. Four months after their wedding, Louis, Dauphin of France, died, and John became heir to the throne of France. The new Dauphin died in 1417 (probably of poison), and Jacqueline became a widow at age 16. To make matters worse, two months later, her father was bitten by a dog, which caused an infection which killed him. She was recognized as the sovereign Countess of Hainaut, where female succession was long customary, but her rights in Holland and Zeeland were immediately contested, especially by her uncle John who gave up his diocese in anticipation of taking over. Jacqueline’s second marriage in 1418, probably engineered by her mother, to John IV, Duke of Brabant, was a disaster. Their close familial relationship required a dispensation from the Pope, which was granted in December 1417, but then revoked in 1418, due to the intrigues of Jacqueline's opponents, including King Sigismund of Luxembourg. Even worse, her new husband proved weak and ineffectual in politics, and had serious financial difficulties as well. Civil war broke out, and though she won some military victories, she was forced to give up much territory. Her husband negotiated away her rights to Holland, Freisland and Zeeland in exchange for financial compensation, but in 1421 when he pledged Hainaut to pay off his pressing debts, Jacqueline declared her desire for an annulment of her marriage, then had to flee to England, where in 1423, she married Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, Henry V's brother, after a dubious English divorce, causing a major scandal. Eventually an annulment of her second marriage was obtained, but she miscarried Humphrey’s child, her only recorded pregnancy. More civil war, political intrigue, and Humphrey’s death, forced her to agree to a peace treaty which left her with empty titles as Philip became the “administrator” of her lands, and then pressed his advantage until she “voluntarily” gave him all her lands and title in exchange for the income from several estates. A last marriage in 1434, to Francis, Lord of Borssele, ended when Jacqueline died in 1436 of tuberculosis.
Jacqueline of Hainaut - by Jan van Eyck
- July 15, 1793 – Almira Hart Lincoln Phelps born, American educator, editor, and author, primarily wrote about nature, but also published novels, essays, a memoir, and several science textbooks on botany, chemistry, and geology. She had more access to education than most girls of her era, and began teaching at the age of 16. She opened a boarding school for young women in her home, then become the principal of a school in Sandy Hill, NY. At the age of 24, she married Simeon Lincoln, and left her career to become a homemaker and the mother of three children, but returned to education after her husband’s untimely death in 1823, as a teacher and vice-principal at the Troy Female Seminary in Troy, NY until 1830. The school’s principal was her sister, Emma Hart Willard. She added to her knowledge of botany, and published her most notable textbook, Familiar Lectures on Botany, in 1829. It went through 17 editions and sold over 275,000 copies by 1872. She married her second husband, John Phelps, in 1831, and left teaching, but continued to write, including textbooks on chemistry, natural philosophy, and education. She and her husband started the Female Institute of Rahway in New Jersey in 1839, but closed it in 1841 when she was interviewed and then hired to run the Patapsco Female Institute in Maryland, where she served as principal and teacher until her retirement in 1856, and her husband was the institute’s business manager until his death in 1849. She became the second woman elected as a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science – Maria Mitchell was the first – and continued to write, lecture, and revise her textbooks until her death, on her 91st birthday, July 15, 1884.
- July 15, 1858 – Emmeline Pankhurst born, militant British Woman’s Suffrage leader; she was a founding member of the Women’s Franchise League in 1889, which secured the vote for some married women in local elections, after the 1894 Local Government Act had given some single women the vote in municipal elections. She went on to found the Women’s Social and Political Union, an all-women suffrage organization with the motto, “deeds, not words.” As opposition in Parliament remained intractable, WSPU tactics became increasingly physical; members smashed windows and hit police officers. When arrested and jailed, they went on hunger strikes to secure better conditions, and were brutally force-fed. There was a split in the group when some members began using arson as a weapon, including a rift between Pankhurst and her two younger daughters, which was never healed. Pankhurst and her eldest daughter continued on, but called a halt to all militant suffrage tactics with the advent of WWI, and urged women to aid industrial production and support the government. But when the war ended, the 1918 Representation of the People Act granted the vote to all men over the age of 21, and to women over 30, if they also met other requirements not applied to men. There had been so many men lost in the war that universal enfranchisement of women would have made them the majority of voters. Pankhurst turned the WSPU into the Women’s Party, and continued the fight. She died on June 14, 1928, just weeks before the Conservative government’s Representation of the People Act (1928) extended the vote to all women over 21 years of age on July 2, 1928.
- July 15, 1864– Maggie L. Walker born in Richmond, Virginia, the daughter of a former slave; African American businesswoman and teacher. After teaching grade school for three years, she married Armstead Walker, a bricklayer, and divided her time between raising a family and her charitable work with the Independent Order of St. Luke. In 1902, she became the first African American woman to charter a bank, the St. Luke Penny Savings Bank, and the first Black woman bank president. When the bank merged with other Richmond banks to become The Consolidated Bank and Trust Company, she was chair of its board of directors. In 1914, her husband was mistakenly shot and killed by their son Russell, when the two men were searching for a burglar. Russell Walker was arrested and charged with murder, but was declared innocent before it went to trial, but he never recovered from the incident, and became an alcoholic. He died in 1923 at age 33. In her later years, Maggie Walker, disabled by paralysis and using a wheelchair, continued her charitable and banking work. She died at age 70 in 1934. In 1978, her home was designated a National Historic Site, and is now a museum operated by the National Parks Service.
- July 15, 1878 – Anna Coleman Ladd born, American sculptor who devoted her time and skills throughout WWI and its aftermath to designing and making facial prosthetics from thin galvanized copper for soldiers who were disfigured by injuries received in combat. The pieces were painted with hard enamel to resemble the recipient's skin tone. She also used human hair to create eyebrows, eyelashes, and mustaches. The prosthesis was attached to the face by strings or eyeglasses. In 1932, the French government awarded her the Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur, the nation’s highest order of merit.
- July 15, 1890 – Florence Yoch born, landscape architect in Los Angeles; with her partner Lucille Council, they broke down barriers against women professionals in a “man’s field.” Yoch designs attracted a wide clientele, from wealthy patrons in Pasadena to Hollywood’s elite, including Jack Warner, David O. Selznick, George Cukor, and director Dorothy Arzner, who hired Yoch to design a garden set for one of her films. This began Yoch’s work as the first woman landscape architect to design outdoor movie sets, including the garden for Tara in Gone With the Wind, rice paddies for The Good Earth, and a field of spring daffodils for How Green Was My Valley.
Filfolio Garden in the Italian style — designed by Florence Yoch
- July 15, 1899 – Estelle Ishigo born, artist, joined her Japanese-American husband in a Wyoming internment camp during WWII, made sketches of her experience for the War Relocation Authority, published Lone Heart Mountain in 1972 chronicling her internment. Days of Waiting is a documentary based on her experiences.
Estelle Ishigo - ‘No Privacy for Women’
- July 15, 1905 – Dorothy Fields born, American librettist, and lyricist of over 400 songs for Broadway and film musicals, one of the first successful female Tin Pan Alley songwriters, memorable for songs like “I Can’t Give You Anything But Love” "The Way You Look Tonight," "A Fine Romance," "On the Sunny Side of the Street," and "I'm in the Mood for Love."
- July 15, 1918 – Brenda Milner born in England, British-Canadian pioneer in clinical neuropsychology, and the study of memory — her research showed that the hippocampus had a role in forming memories, a fundamental discovery in neuroscience that has seeded entire fields of research. Professor in the Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery at McGill University, and a professor of Psychology at the Montreal Neurological Institute; explored interaction between the brain’s left and right hemispheres; honored with the 2009 Balzan Prize for Cognitive Neuroscience. On her birthday this year, she will become 104 years old.
- July 15, 1919 – Iris Murdoch born in Ireland, British author and philosopher, wrote 26 novels including: The Sea, the Sea (1978 Booker Prize), The Sacred and Profane Love Machine (Whitbread Literary Award for Fiction), and The Black Prince (James Tait Black Memorial Prize); she was honored with the 1997 Golden PEN Award for her body of work.
- July 15, 1923 – Connie Boucher born, artist, character merchandising industry pioneer. She licensed characters like Charles Schulz’s “Peanuts” and Maurice Sendak’s “Where the Wild Things Are.”
- July 15, 1924 – Marianne Bernadotte, Countess of Wisborg, born as Gullan Marianne Lindberg; the Swedish actress who married the former Swedish prince Sigvard Bernadotte in 1961, the younger son of the King Gustav VI Adolf of Sweden. Noted for her philanthropy, she has been deeply involved in health and physical handicap-related charitable work, and as a patron of the arts, including championing and contributing funding for the Swedish Permobil electric wheelchair, now used by thousands of people with mobility problems. She also joined in launching an academy to coordinate and help fund international dyslexia research. She is the Honorary Chair of the Swedish Dyslexia Foundation. She raised funds for a children’s eye care center in Stockholm, and with her husband, founded the Sigvard & Marianne Bernadotte Research Foundation for Children’s Eye Care.
- July 15, 1927 – Carmen Zapata born of Mexican and Argentinian parents, American actress and activist; co-founder of the Screen Actors Guild Ethnic Minority Committee in 1972, and co-founder/first president/producer-director of the Bilingual Foundation for the Arts (BFA) in 1973, which produces plays in English and Spanish.
- July 15, 1938 – Carmen Callil born, Australian publisher, writer, and critic; the founder of Virago Press in 1973, which published women authors, and creator of Virago’s Modern Classics list, which brought back into print the best “forgotten” women authors of the past; elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2010, and honoured with their Benson Medal in 2017.
- July 15, 1939 – Clara Adams completes her trip, becomes first woman passenger to set a world record of 16 days and 19 hours for an around-the-world flight solely on scheduled passenger airlines.
Clara Adams and the Honolulu Clipper
- July 15, 1942 – Vivian Malone Jones born, one of the first two black students to enroll at the University of Alabama in 1963, and the university’s first black graduate. She worked as a research analyst for the civil rights division of the U.S. Department of Justice; after she earned a Master’s degree in Public Administration, she worked as an employee relations specialist at the central office of the U.S. Veteran’s Administration. Jones was appointed as Executive Director of the Voter Education Project, then Director of Civil Rights and Urban Affairs, and was Director of Environmental Justice for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) until her retirement in 1996. She died at age 63 following a stroke in 2005.
- July 15, 1943 – Jocelyn Bell Burnell born, Irish astrophysicist, discovered the first four radio pulsars in 1967, when she was still a research student. She noticed an unusual stellar radio signal - a rapid series of pulses repeating every 1.337 sec. This interstellar beacon was not man-made, so it was nicknamed in fun as LGM, for “Little Green Men.” In the next few months, by careful scrutiny of hundreds of feet of pen-recorder paper, she found three more sources of radio pulses. These represented a new class of celestial objects – pulsars – which astronomers eventually associated with superdense matter in the final stage of the evolution of massive stars. To date, hundreds more pulsars have been identified. Burnell was excluded from the 1974 Nobel Prize in Physics, which was given for the discovery to her thesis supervisor Antony Hewish and radio astronomer Martin Ryle. Ryle’s work on aperture-synthesis technique and Hewish’s decisive role in the discovery of pulsars were cited in the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences’ press release announcing the award. Several prominent astronomers criticized her omission. She became the project manager for the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope in Mauna Kea, Hawaii in 1986; President of the Royal Astronomical Society (2002-2004); Visiting Professor of Astrophysics at Oxford, a Fellow of Mansfield College; President of the Institute of Physics (2008-2010); recipient of Herschel Medal. In 2018, her appointment as Chancellor of the University of Dundee was announced. She is a long-time campaigner for increasing the number and status of women in the fields of astronomy and physics.
- July 15, 1947 – Lydia Davis born, American author of novels, short stories, essays, and a translator from French; she is known for ‘flash fiction’ – literary works of extreme brevity.
- July 15, 1950 – Arianna Huffington born in Greece, Greek-American author and syndicated columnist; co-founder and editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post, which was acquired by AOL in 2011 for $315 million USD. She remained as President of the Huffington Post Media Group until 2016, when she left to start Thrive Global.
- July 15, 1952 – Jill Long Thompson born, American Democratic politician, educator, and author; President Barack Obama appointed her as board chair and CEO of the Farm Credit Administration (2012-2015); Thompson was chosen by President Bill Clinton as Under Secretary of Agriculture for Rural Development (1995-2001); served as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Indiana's 4th district (1989-1995). She is also the author of The Character of American Democracy, published in 2020.
- July 15, 1957 – Kate Kellaway born in England to Australian parents; journalist and literary critic for The Observer newspaper. She was a teacher in Zimbabwe (1982-1986) before beginning her career as a critic at the Literary Review in 1987. Her assignments at the Observer have included features writer, deputy literary editor, deputy theatre critic, poetry editor, and children's books editor. She was one of five judges for the Booker Prize in 1995.
- July 15, 1979 – Laura Benanti born, American stage actress and singer; nominated five times for Tony Awards, and won the 2008 Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical for her performance as Louise in the Broadway revival of Gypsy. Also noted for the Broadway musicals Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, Swing!, and The Wedding Singer, as well as revivals of The Sound of Music, Into the Woods, Nine, and She Loves Me. Her appearances on television include a recurring role as Melania Trump on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. She has made three solo albums, and reprised her stage roles on nine Broadway cast albums. She took part in the 2005 World AIDS Day “dream cast” benefit concert of the musical The Secret Garden, adaptation and lyrics by Marsha Norman, and composed by Lucy Simon.
- July 15, 1997 – Donatella Versace launches her first couture collection for her brother’s Versace label, a year after his murder.
- July 15, 2010 – Same-sex marriage is legalized in Argentina.
- July 15, 2013 – Upper house of the UK Parliament approved same sex marriage in England and Wales, beginning in 2014.
- July 15, 2020 – Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg underwent an endoscopic procedure at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore to treat a possible infection. Ginsburg had a fever and chills when she was hospitalized "to clean out a bile duct stent that was placed in late August," court spokeswoman Kathleen Arberg said. The 87-year-old justice was reported to be "resting comfortably and will stay in the hospital for a few days to receive intravenous antibiotic treatment," according to a press release from the court. Ginsburg, a cancer survivor, had been hospitalized several times in recent years. In May, 2020, she underwent a nonsurgical treatment for a benign gallbladder condition, and participated in oral arguments from her hospital bed.
- July 15, 2021 – In Seneca Falls, the Women’s Rights National Historical Park (NHP), due to the Covid-19 Pandemic. had to hold its annual Convention Days virtually for the first time in 2020, and held them again virtually in 2021. Convention Days, a signature event in Seneca Falls for many years, focuses on the revolutionary 1848 Seneca Falls Women’s Rights Convention through art, drama, and scholarship. “The Abolition movement is where many women learned how to participate in activism and built the networks they would use to advance their mission for equality in other areas of society.” said Chief of Interpretation & Education, Janine Waller. In 2022, the NHP announced that Convention Days would once again be held onsite July 15-17, 2022, and other community museums in the area would also be holding live events.
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- July 16, 1194 – Clare of Assisi born as Chiara Offreduccio; Italian founder of the Catholic order of Poor Ladies, renamed the Order of Saint Clare, but commonly called the Poor Clares. Clare was one of the earliest followers of Saint Frances of Assisi, and based the Rule of Life for her order on his teachings, the first set of monastic guidelines written by a woman. She succeeded in thwarting Popes Innocent III, Honorius III, Gregory IX, and Innocent IV in their attempts to ease her order’s strict rule of poverty, which banned accepting any possessions.
- July 16, 1546 – Anne Askew, Protestant English poet, “the Faire Gospeler” (lay preacher, one who had many sections of the Bible memorized) is burned at the stake after being tortured in the Tower of London. She was one of the earliest known women poets in the English language, and the first Englishwoman to demand a divorce (she had been married off by her father at age 15 to her eldest sister’s fiancée, Thomas Kyme, when her sister died), but she was a devout believer in direct prayer to God, without intercession by priests, while her husband was Catholic; she bore two children (who likely died in infancy) before he threw her out, so she moved to London, resumed her maiden name and became a gospeller. Kyme had her arrested for her preaching, and dragged back, but she escaped and returned to London, was arrested twice more, and the second time she was tortured in the Tower of London, the only recorded torture of a woman there. Ordered to name like-minded women she refused, then was stretched on the rack, which dislocates joints of wrists, ankles, elbows, knees, shoulders and hips. Askew still refused to renounce her beliefs, and was convicted of heresy. She was martyred in Smithfield, having to be carried in a chair and then bound unto the stake, unable to stand because of the torture she had endured. When she refused again to recant, she was burned to death. Witnesses said she didn't cry out until the flames reached her chest. The “Act for the Advancement of True Religion” in 1543 restricted the reading of the Bible to clerics, noblemen, the gentry, and richer merchants. Women of the gentry and nobility were only allowed to read the Bible in private. Reading the Bible in English was forbidden to "women, artificers, apprentices, journeymen, serving-men of the rank of yeoman and under, husbandmen and laborers."
- July 16, 1821 – Mary Baker Eddy born, American founder of the Church of Christ, Scientist, more commonly known as Christian Science, and of the Christian Science Monitor newspaper; her book, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, has been a bestseller for decades.
- July 16, 1849 – Clara Shortridge Foltz born, attorney and suffragist; the first woman lawyer in California, first California female deputy district attorney, and founder of the state’s first public defender system. When she discovered that women were excluded from practicing law in California, she drafted an amendment, dubbed the ‘Women Lawyers Bill,’ to the California Code of Procedure, to eliminate both gender and racial discrimination. She joined forces with other feminists in a hard-fought battle to pass it – then refused to leave the Governor’s office until he signed it into law, just seconds before it would have expired. She and fellow suffragist Laura de Force Gordon sued the board of Hastings Law School to gain admission – the lengthy court battle took all her money, and she was never able to attend classes, but practiced law anyway under the amendment she had initiated, and was often referred to as the “Portia of the Pacific.”
- July 16, 1862 – Ida B. Wells-Barnett born, American journalist, newspaper editor, public speaker, civil rights leader, and feminist, known for her extensive documentation of racial lynchings in the U.S. She formed the National Association of Colored Women (1896), and joined the National Equal Rights League, working to get all women the vote. She was also an inspiring speaker who traveled internationally on lecture tours.
- July 16, 1863 – Fannie Bloomfield Zeisler born in Austria, American pianist, frequently described by biased critics as a woman who “plays like a man” because she was a virtuoso, with technique and bravura, and a wide range of repertoire. She came to the U.S. with her family at age four, and made her professional debut in 1884 with Chicago’s Beethoven Society, followed by a New York debut in 1885, and a series of concerts with the Boston Symphony. She played at the Columbian Exposition of 1893, went on several successful world tours, but was also an instructor at Chicago’s Bush Temple of Music, raised three sons, and wrote articles about music. In 1925, she founded the Fannie Bloomfield Zeisler Fund to assist musicians in need. She died at age 64 of heart disease.
- July 16, 1880 – Emily Stowe becomes the first woman granted a license to practice medicine in Canada by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario. She had to get her training in the U.S. because she was denied entry into medical school in Toronto. She was a leader in the struggle for Canadian women’s suffrage; founder of the Toronto Women’s Literary Club, which became the Canadian Women’s Suffrage Association in 1883. Her daughter, Augusta Stowe-Gullen, was later the first woman to earn a medical degree in Canada.
- July 16, 1880 – Kathleen Norris born, American Catholic author of 93 sentimental novels and innumerable short stories and newspaper columns praising motherhood and large families; ironically, she was so successful that her husband took on most of the household management; she was against birth control, but supported woman’s suffrage, and was involved in the prohibition and peace movements, as well as organizations which benefited children and the poor.
- July 16, 1882 – Violette Neatley Anderson born in England, African American lawyer. She graduated from high school, then the Chicago Atheneum, and worked as a court reporter for fifteen years. She attended Chicago Seminar of Sciences (1912-1915), then was one of the first women to earn an LLB from Chicago Law School in 1920, and was the first black woman admitted to practice by examination by the state board of examiners. She was the first woman to open her own private practice in Illinois, and became the first woman City Prosecutor for Chicago (1922). In 1926, she was the first African American woman admitted to practice law before the U.S. Supreme Court. In addition to be a prosecuting attorney, she ran a court reporting agency, and became vice-president of the Cook County Bar Association (1930-1926). Her testimony and advocacy were instrumental in the passage of the Bankhead-Jones Act, which was signed into law by President Franklin Roosevelt in 1937. It was designed to provide low-interest loans to sharecroppers and tenant farmers, enabling them to become farm owners. Neatly Anderson was a member of the Federal Colored Women’s Clubs, and the League of Women Voters. She also served as an executive board member of the Chicago Council of Social Agencies.
- July 16, 1884 – Anna Alexandrovna Vyrubova born, Russian lady-in-waiting and close friend of Tsaritsa Alexandra Fyodorovna, who was the go-between for Alexandra and Rasputin; she was arrested in 1917 and spent five months in prison, which included a medical exam to prove her virginity, and interrogation on her political role. She admitted seeing Rasputin once or twice a week, but feigned a childish innocence; the investigator thought she was too naïve and unintelligent to have any influence over the Tsarina; noted for her memoirs, written after she escaped to Finland.
- July 16, 1896 – Evelyn Preer born, African American blues singer, stage and screen actress. She had major roles in over a dozen films made by African-American film pioneer Oscar Micheaux, from her 1919 film debut in The Homesteader, to The Spider’s Web in 1926, in which she played challenging roles as both heroine and villain. Her first talkie was the “race musical” Georgia Rose in 1930. Her last film appearance was as a prostitute in Joseph von Sternberg’s 1932 film Blonde Venus, which starred Marlene Dietrich. Only a few of her films, mostly shorts, have survived. She was also a member of the Lafayette Players, a theatrical stock company in Chicago, and appeared on Broadway in 1926 in David Belasco’s production of Lulu Belle, and in Rang Tang, a black musical revue, in 1927. As a singer, she performed in cabaret and musical theatre, and made a recording with Duke Ellington. In April, 1932, she gave birth to her only child, Edeve, but there were complications from which she never fully recovered, and Preer died of pneumonia in November, 1932, at the age of 36.
- July 16, 1901– Millicent Fawcett is appointed to lead the British government commission to South Africa to investigate conditions in the 45 camps holding Afrikaner women and children, and the few Boer male prisoners of war not removed entirely from South Africa, in the third year of the Second Boer War. She and the other women chosen for the commission were very pro-British and anti-Boer (Lady Alice Knox was married to Lord Kitchener, whose ‘scorched earth’ policy burned thousands of farms and homesteads, and changed the camps from refugee camps to ‘concentration’ camps which were severely overcrowded, with constant and severe shortages of food, shelter, sanitation, and medicine). But the ‘Ladies’ Commission, when faced with the reality of hundreds of children dying from starvation or the epidemics of measles and typhoid in the camps, wrote a report which corroborated welfare campaigner Emily Hobhouse’s earlier shocking description of the camps, which had caused a public outcry when printed in British newspapers. It is estimated that over 24,00o children (about 50% of all Boer children), and over 3800 women perished in the camps. The commission spent four months in South Africa, and initiated some immediate relief efforts, which slowed the death rates, then became an outspoken and powerful force echoing the recommendations already made by Emily Hobhouse. However, unlike Emily Hobhouse, the commission did not investigate the camps which held over 100,000 black Africans, mainly farmers, where no records of the dead were kept at all.
Millicent Fawcett — Boer child — Emily Hobhouse
- July 16, 1903 – Irmgard Flügge-Lotz born in Germany, German-American mathematician, aerospace engineer and control theorist; pioneer in development of the discontinuous automatic control theory, which has wide application in guidance systems, electronics, fire-control systems, and temperature regulation. In 1961, she became the first woman engineering professor at Stanford University, and the first female engineer elected as a Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.
- July 16, 1907 – Frances Rappaport Horwich born, American pioneer in children’s television programming; “Miss Frances” of Ding Dong School (1952-1956 at NBC, 1958-1965 in syndication).
- July 16, 1907 – Barbara Stanwyck born as Ruby Stevens, orphaned at age four, spent time in foster homes; American actor on stage, screen, and television for 60 years, the highest paid woman in the United States in 1944; a conservative Republican, she believed if she could succeed, others also could without help.
- July 16, 1911 – Ginger Rogers born as Virginia McMath, actor and dancer, partnered with Fred Astaire, won 1941 Academy Award for Best Actress in Kitty Foyle. She was raised as a Christian Scientist, and remained a lifelong adherent. Politically, she was a Republican. Rogers married and divorced five times.
Ginger Rogers dancing with Fred Astaire
- July 16, 1912 – Amy Patterson, born as Amelia Cabeza de Pelayo Patterson, Argentinean composer, poet, and music teacher.
- July 16, 1924 – Bess Myerson born, American politician, the first and only Jewish Miss America (1945); New York City’s first Commissioner of Consumer Affairs (1969-1973), and Commissioner of Cultural Affairs (1983-1987); also served on several presidential commissions.
- July 16, 1927 – Shirley Hughes born, English author and illustrator, who has written over 50 books, which have sold more than 11 million copies, and has also illustrated 200 others; honored in 1977 and 2003 with the Kate Greenaway Medal for Illustration, and won the inaugural Booktrust Lifetime Achievement Award in 2015; noted for Dogger, the Alfie series, and Ella’s Big Chance.
‘New Kitten’ — by Shirley Hughes
- July 16, 1928 – Anita Brookner CBE born, British novelist and art historian; first woman to hold the position of Slade Professor of Fine Arts at Cambridge (1967-1968), a visiting professorship; awarded the 1984 Man Booker Prize for her novel Hotel du Lac.
- July 16, 1929 – Sheri S. Tepper born, American author of science fiction, horror and mystery novels, noted for feminist and ecofeminist science fiction, such as The Gate to Women's Country, Beauty (winner of the 1992 Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel), and the Arbai Trilogy; her pen names include A. J. Orde, E. E. Horlak, and B. J. Oliphant.
- July 16, 1931 – Lady Caroline Blackwood born, English novelist, essayist, and journalist; noted for her autobiographical For all that I found here, a collection of memoir, fiction, and reportage about her native Ulster; her novels, which include Corrigan and Great Granny Webster; and her book On the Perimeter, about the women’s anti-nuclear protest at Greenham Common. She also published Darling, a book of poems, and wrote the play Mourning Pictures, which was produced on Broadway and in the UK, where the British production was broadcast on BBC radio. She died from cancer at age 64 in 1996.
- July 16, 1934 – Katherine Ortega born, American Republican politician and banker; Treasurer of the United States (1983-1989); as president of Santa Ana State Bank (1975-1977), she was the first woman chief executive of a bank in California.
- July 16, 1938 – Cynthia Enloe born, American feminist writer, theorist, and academic; known for her work on gender and militarism, and her contributions to the fields of feminist international relations and political economy; the Cynthia Enloe Award was established in 2015 by the International Feminist Journal of Politics, in conjunction with the academic publisher Taylor & Francis in her honor; author of The Curious Feminist, "Gender" Is Not Enough: The Need for Feminist Consciousness, and Bananas, Beaches, and Bases.
- July 16, 1939 – Ruth Fahnbulleh Perry born, Liberian politician; after the First Liberian Civil War, was interim Chair of the Council of State of Liberia (1996-1997), Liberia’s woman head of state; in 1985, she won a seat in the Liberian Senate as a Unity Party candidate, and was the only opposition party member in the Senate (1985-1989) when the rest of her party boycotted taking their seats in protest of the illegitimacy of Samuel Doe’s government. "You can't solve the problems by staying away," she said. After her term in the senate, she was active in Women Initiative in Liberia, Women in Action for Goodwill, and the Association of Social Services, working to end to civil war.
- July 16, 1939 – Mariele Ventre born, Italian singer and conductor; founder-director of Piccolo Coro dell-Antoniano, an award-winning children’s choir.
- July 16, 1946 – Louise Fréchette born, French Canadian public servant and diplomat; currently working on a nuclear energy and global security research project at the Centre for International Governance Innovation; member of the Global Leadership Foundation; was the first UN Deputy Secretary-General (1997-2006); Canadian Ambassador to the UN (1992-1994); Canadian Ambassador to Argentina (1985-1989); part of Canada’s UN delegation in Geneva (1978-1985).
- July 16, 1946 – Barbara J. Lee born, American Democratic politician; a U.S. Representative from California since 1998; only member of either House to vote against the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), granted to President George W. Bush in 2001 after 9-11, calling it “a blank check to the president to attack anyone involved in the September 11 events — anywhere, in any country, without regard to our nation's long-term foreign policy, economic and national security interests, and without time limit ...” Lee was also a vocal critic of the Iraqi War, and is an advocate for legislation to create a Department of Peace; strongly in favor of gun control, pro-choice, supporter of legislation to increase affordable housing, and an opponent of the Death Penalty; previously a California state assembly member and state senator; Chair of the U.S. Congressional Black Caucus (2008-2010); Chair of the revived Congressional Social Work Caucus (since 2013).
- July 16, 1947 – Alexis Herman born, American Democratic politician; first African American woman to serve as U.S. Secretary of Labor (1997-2001); White House Director of the Office of Public Liaison (1993-1997); Director of the U.S. Women’s Bureau (1977-1981).
- July 16, 1950 – Frances Spaulding born, British art historian, specializing in 20th century British art, and author of over a dozen major books of period art history, biography, and essays; was editor of The Burlington Magazine (2015-2017), the longest-running art journal in the English language; Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature since 1984.
- July 16, 1954 – Jeanette Mott Oxford born, American activist and Democratic politician; first openly lesbian member of the Missouri House of Representatives, since 2005; Executive Director of the Missouri Association for Social Welfare (1991-2000).
- July 16, 1954 – Julie Lyonn Lieberman born, American pioneer in music improvisation and ergonomic performance; violinist, vocalist, composer, author, educator, and recording artist. She was composer-in-residence for the feminist theatre company, Emmatroupe, and co-creator with Leonardo Shapiro of The Yellow House, a play based on the life of Vincent Van Gogh, which was performed at La Mama in New York City. She is the Artistic Director for the summer program, Strings Without Boundaries.
- July 16, 1955 – Susan Wheeler born, American poet and academic; has published six volumes of poetry and a novel; won the 1994 Pushcart Prize for her poetry collection Bag o' Diamonds.
- July 16, 1957 – Alexandra Marinina born as Marina Anatolyevna Alekseyeva in the Ukraine, best-selling Russian author of detective fiction; her 30 novels have sold over 17 million copies, and been translated into 20 languages, but only Confluence of Circumstances is currently available in English translation.
- July 16, 1971 – Jeanne M. Holm promoted to brigadier general in the United States Air Force, becoming the first woman brigadier general in the USAF, and the first woman two-star general in any branch of the U.S. military.
- July 16, 1974 – Maret Maripuu born, Estonian libertarian Reform Party politician; Minister of Social Affairs (2007-2009); Vice President of the Riigikogu, the Estonian parliament (2006-2007), and member of the Riigikogu (1999-2007); Tallinn City Council member (1999-2005).
- July 16, 1983 – Sarah Quartel born, Canadian composer, primarily of choral music, including Voice on the Wind, All Shall Be Well, The Bird’s Lullaby. and Snow Angel.
- July 16, 2015 – J.K. Rowling’s sixth Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, sells 9 million copies in the first 24 hours after its release.
- July 16, 2019 – German Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen is elected the first woman European Commission president, the European Union’s executive branch. She is also the first German elected to the position in over 50 years. “Exactly 40 years ago, the first president of the European parliament, Simone Veil, was elected and presented her vision of a united Europe,” Von der Leyen said. “It is thanks to you, and to all the other European icons, that I present to you today my vision of Europe. And 40 years later, it is with great pride that it is finally a woman who is the presidential candidate of the European commission ... If member states do not propose enough female commissioners, I will not hesitate to ask for new names,” she said. “Since 1958 there have been 183 commissioners. Only 35 were women. That is less than 20%.”
- July 16, 2020 – Fifteen women who previously worked for the Washington Redskins say they suffered sexual harassment and verbal abuse while working for the NFL team, in incidents occurring from 2006 to 2019. Emily Applegate, a marketing coordinator for the team from 2014 to 2015, said the former Redskin CEO requested she wear a tight dress to a meeting “so the men in the room have something to look at ... Any small issue that set him off, set him off like times 10, and that would be when he would curse at me. He would use derogatory slurs towards me.” She said would meet a female colleague in the bathroom every day to cry over what was “the most miserable experience” of her life. “Nobody deserves to be degraded and treated like that. Nobody deserves to be disrespected,” Applegate said. Fourteen other women described similar situations anonymously because they feared legal reprisals after the team declined to release them from their non-disclosure agreements. Three executives reportedly departed after the Washington Post presented the women’s allegations to the team. A team spokesperson said the team had hired a law firm to investigate the allegations. The team’s statement reads, “The Washington Redskins football team takes issues of employee misconduct seriously.”
Emily Applegate
- July 16, 2021 – In the UK, the English Institute of Sport (EIS) is studying the effects of menstrual cycles on the performance of women athletes, using regular saliva testing to track the rise and fall of estrogen and progesterone. The menstrual cycle is among the least studied aspects of human biology. Because of the hormones involved, the menstrual cycle underpins many aspects of a woman’s health, from her bone strength to her fertility, immune system, and mental functioning. Many women also experience symptoms related to their menstrual cycle such as low energy, pain, or bloating. Among the results of a 2019 study of female rugby players, published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, 93% of the athletes reported menstrual cycle-related symptoms, and 67% believed these symptoms impaired their performances. The EIS pilot study involves 15 elite women athletes from eight sports, including football (soccer), tennis, rowing, cycling, gymnastics, and modern pentathlon.
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Eurasian Beavers – Mates for Life
Eurasian Beaver pair — photo by Mauri Turunen
In the 19th century, Eurasian beavers were hunted to near-extinction for their fur and castoreum, which was used in making perfumes and tonics, but they made a comeback in the 20th century, and are now listed as “least concern” on the IUCN Red List.
Eurasian Beavers are one of the rare mammal species who mate for life. Beavers live in colonies which are formed by mated beaver pairs and used to raise their children. Should the worst happen and one of a beaver pair dies, the still-living beaver will seek out another mate.
Eurasian beavers have one litter per year, the females coming into estrus for only 12 to 24 hours, between late December and May, but peaking in January. Gestation averages 107 days and they average three kits per litter with a range of two to six kits. Most beavers of either sex do not reproduce until they are three years of age, but about 20% of females have their first litter in their second year. Male partners share some of the parenting responsibilities, but the “sub-adults” of their family unit perform much of the “baby-sitting” duties, before they are fully mature (at about two years), and their mother sends them off to form their own family groups.
The Eurasian beaver is a keystone species, as it helps to support the ecosystem which it inhabits. It creates wetlands, which provide habitat for other animals. By cutting waterside trees and shrubs down to ground level, they facilitate tree and shrub regrowth as dense shrubs, which provide cover for birds and other animals.
Eurasian beavers build dams that trap sediment, improve water quality, recharge groundwater tables and increase cover and forage for trout and salmon. Also, abundance and diversity of bats increases, apparently because of gaps created in forests, making it easier for bats to navigate.
Surprisingly, there are enough differences between the North American beaver and the Eurasian beaver that they are not genetically compatible – for example, North American beavers have 40 chromosomes, while Eurasians have 48.
