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 April 17 through April 23.
PLEASE NOTE:
The next WOW2 edition will post on Saturday, APRIL 30, 2022.
There are FIVE Saturdays in April, so officebss is taking
next week off to celebrate her wedding anniversary.
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.
April is Black Women’s History Month
and National Poetry Month
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 are also due to wow2lib, WOW2’s Librarian Emeritus.
These trailblazers have a lot to teach us about persistence in the face of overwhelming odds. I hope you will find reclaiming our past as much of an inspiration as I do.
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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- April 17, 1620 – Marguerite Bourgeoys born, French nun, founder of the Congregation of Notre Dame of Montreal in the colony of New France, now part of Québec, Canada. She started a convent there, one of the first uncloistered religious communities in the Catholic Church. She dedicated the rest of her life to educating young girls, the poor, and children of First Nations. She is now the Patron Saint of People Rejected by Religious Orders.
- April 17, 1811 – Ann Sheppard Mounsey born, British organist and composer; co-editor of Hymns of Prayer and Praise – with Chants Kyries. She was the organist at St. Vedast Foster Lane for almost 50 years, as well as performing at concerts, and as an accompanist. Noted for Sacred Harmony, a collection of sacred works composed in collaboration with her sister, Elizabeth Mounsey.
- April 17, 1845 – Isabel Barrows born, American physician, professor of ophthalmology at Howard University. Earlier, she was the first woman to work as a stenographer for the United States State Department (for William Seward in 1868), and the first woman stenographer for Congress. Barrows was one of the first women to study ophthalmology at the University of Vienna, the first U.S. woman ophthalmologist, and the first woman to open a private medical practice in Washington D.C.
- April 17, 1851 – Anna Garlin Spencer born, educator, author, lecturer, Unitarian minister, a leading woman suffragist, advocate for women’s equality, and peace activist. She was the first woman ordained as a minister in Rhode Island. Garlin Spencer was associated with the New York Society for Ethical Culture (1903–1909) and the New York School of Philanthropy (1903–1913). In 1909, she signed on to the call to found the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. She was a popular lecturer and wrote on social problems, especially concerning women and family relations. Her writings include Woman's Share in Social Culture (1913), and The Family and Its Members (1922).
- April 17, 1885 – Karen Blixen, Baroness Karen Christenze von Blixen-Finecke, born, Danish author, wrote in English and Danish, under the pseudonym Isak Dinesen; Out of Africa, and Babette’s Feast.
- April 17, 1893 – Irene Castle born as Irene Foote, American ballroom dancer; in partnership with her husband Vernon Blyth, using the stage names Vernon and Irene Castle, they became the toast of Paris in 1911, then returned to the U.S. to appear in New York night clubs, in vaudeville, silent films, and on Broadway. In 1914, the Castles opened Castle House, a dancing school, and the Sans Souci restaurant, both in New York City as well as a nightclub called Castles by the Sea on the Boardwalk in Long Beach, New York. As America’s premier dance team, they helped remove the stigma of vulgarity from dancing “cheek-to-cheek,” and when Irene “bobbed” her hair, short hair gained popularity in 1920s. The Castles hired James Reese Europe and his Society Orchestra, an all-black orchestra, to accompany them, and Europe wrote some of his best-known compositions for them. After Vernon was killed in 1918, when his plane crashed during a training exercise at the U.S. Army airfield near Benbrook, Texas, Irene Castle did a series of silent films. She was married three more times, divorced once, and was widowed twice. Irene became an outspoken animal rights activist, and did 15-minute radio shows with her bulldog Zowie in the 1930s. She founded an animal shelter which is still active. She called it “Orphans of the Storm,” after the 1921 film starring Lillian and Dorothy Gish.
- April 17, 1913 – Dorothy Fosdick born, worked as federal official (1942-1953) developing the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan, advised on national security and wrote speeches for Henry “Scoop” Jackson (1955-1983).
- April 17, 1915 – Regina Ghazaryan born, Armenian painter and military pilot during WWII; she hid and preserved the works of the Armenian poet and activist Yeghishe Charents during the regime of Joseph Stalin.
- April 17, 1916 – Sirimavo Bandaranaike born, Sri Lankan politician, first non-hereditary woman head of government in modern history when she was elected as Prime Minister of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) in 1960, then served three terms: 1960-1965, 1970-1977 and 1994-2000. In 1975, she created what is now called the Ministry of Women and Child Affairs, and was appointed as the first woman to serve in the Sri Lankan cabinet.
- April 17, 1924 – ** Althea T. L. Simmons born, NAACP’s head of their Washington DC branch and the group’s chief lobbyist (1979-1990); known for keeping a sharp eye on legislators and policymakers, and her role in shaping a number of civil rights bills. She died in 1990 at age 66.
- April 17, 1928 – Cynthia Ozick born, American author of short stories, novels, and essays; she won the National Book Critics Circle Award (2000) for Quarrel & Quandary.
- April 17, 1931 – Joyce Molyneux born, British chef, one of the first women awarded a Michelin star. She was the chef-owner of The Carved Angel restaurant in Dartmouth, Devon, until her retirement in 1999. She was a major figure in the development of modern British cuisine in the 1970s and 1980s. She also wrote The Carved Angel Cookery Book, and Born to Cook: Angel Food.
- April 17, 1931 – Roberta Stephen born, Canadian classical composer, best known for her song cycles and vocal chamber music. She is also noted for her vocal works for children. “The Eye of the Seasons” for voice, piano, and clarinet was commissioned by New Works Calgary for the opening of the Eckhardt Gramatté Hall in the Rozsa Centre at the University of Calgary.
- April 17, 1940 – Claire Bretécher born, French cartoonist, known for her portrayals of women and gender issues. Her creations included Les Frustrés, and the unimpressed teenager Agrippine. She worked for several popular magazines, and was a co-founder of the Franco-Belgian comics magazine L'Écho des savanes (The Echo of the Savannas). Bretécher published several successful collections in the 1970s and 1980s, and her Agrippine series was adapted for French television. She died at age 79 in 2020, after suffering for several years from Alzheimer’s.
- April 17, 1940 – Anja Silja born, German operatic soprano and theatrical director of operas; known for her extensive repertoire and acting ability; she won a Grammy Award in 2004 for her recording of Leoš Janáček’s Jenůfa.
- April 17, 1946 – Clare Francis born, British writer and single-handed and distance racing sailor, set a women’s transatlantic single-handed record; she was the first woman skipper in the Whitbread Round the World Race.
- April 17, 1947 – Sherrie Levine born, American photographer, painter, conceptual artist, and feminist art critic; her work was showcased in the exhibit Difference: On Representation and Sexuality in 1984.
- April 17, 1948 – Alice V. Harden born, American educator and Democratic State Senator in Mississippi (1988-2012); member of the Women’s Political Network, the National Council of Negro Women, and the League of Women Voters; life member of the NAACP; chaired the Southern Legislative Conference’s Education Committee.
- April 17, 1954 – The Federation of South African Women is founded, an attempt to organize a broad-based and inter-racial women’s organization. Helen Joseph, Lillian Ngoyi, and Amin Cachalia formed a steering committee. The first conference was attended by 164 delegates representing 230,000 women from all parts of South Africa. Membership was primarily not individual, but consisted of affiliated women’s groups. The Women’s Charter was drafted at the conference, calling for enfranchisement of men and women of all races; equality of opportunity in employment; equal pay for equal work; equal rights in relation to property, marriage, and children; and the removal of all laws and customs that denied women equality.
- April 17, 1956 – Elizabeth Lindsey born as Elizabeth Kapu'uwailani Lindsey, in Hawaii; actress, filmmaker, and anthropologist. She earned her Ph.D. in cultural Anthropology from the Union Institute in 1999, and is a National Geographic explorer, the first Polynesian-heritage woman National Geographic fellow. Her documentary, And Then There Were None, tells the story of the colonization of Hawaii.
- April 17, 1957 – Dame Julia Macur born, British judge of the Court of Appeal of England and Wales since 2013: since April 2017, the Senior Presiding Judge for England and Wales.
- April 17, 1964 – Jerrie Mock ends her 22,860 mile trip and becomes the first woman to fly solo around the world, taking 29 days with 21 stopovers. Awarded the Louis Blériot Medal from the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale for her achievement.
- April 17, 1964 – Rachel Notley born, Canadian politician and leader of the Alberta New Democratic Party; since 2015, Premier of Alberta; Member of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta for Edmonton-Strathcona since 2008.
- April 17, 1967 – Birgitta Jonsdottir born, Icelandic politician, anarchist, poet, and an anti-corruption/free speech activist; co-founder of the Pirate Party; a member of the Alþingi, Iceland’s Parliament (2009-2013 for Reykjavik South and 2013-2017 for Southwest). She was involved with Wikileaks from 2009 until 2011, when she said in an interview with the National Post, "There is not enough transparency within the organization about decisions and not good enough communication flow." She has published a poetry collection, Frostdinglar, and two anthologies, The Book of Hope and The World Healing Book, and is a member of the Writer’s Union of Iceland.
- April 17, 1973 – Jennifer Garner born, American actress, known for playing Sydney Bristow in the TV spy-thriller series Alias (2001–2006), for which she won a Golden Globe Best Actress in a Television Drama, and for the films, The Odd Life of Timothy Green, and Dallas Buyers Club. Garner also produced and starred in the comedy Butter (2011) and the drama Yes Day (2021). She is an early childhood education activist, and is a good-will ambassador and on the board of Save the Children USA. In 2008, Garner hosted two fund-raisers for Barack Obama during the 2008 Democratic Primary. During the 2016 presidential campaign, she hosted a fund-raiser in support of Hillary Clinton. Garner has campaigned for laws to protect her children from paparazzi, and in August, 2013, she testified before the California Assembly Judiciary Committee in support of a bill that would protect celebrities' children from harassment by photographers. The bill passed in September 2013 and is now California law.
- April 17, 1973 – Katrin Koov born, Estonian architect, co-founded the architectural bureau KAVAKAVA OÜ; editor of Maja, the Estonian Architectural Review.
- April 17, 1975 – Heidi Alexander born, British Labour politician; Deputy Mayor of London for Transport since 2018; Member of Parliament for Lewisham East (2010-2018); Lewisham London Borough Council member (2004-2009).
- April 17, 1985 – Rooney Mara born, American film and television actress, and animal rights activist; best known for playing the title role in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, for which she was nominated for an Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role. More recently, she appeared in the films Lion, The Discovery, and A Ghost Story. She is very actively involved with the Uwesa Foundation, which supports empowerment programs for children and families in the Kibera slum of Nairobi in Kenya.
- April 17, 2019 – NASA Astronaut and electrical engineer Christina Koch was on track to break the record for longest single spaceflight by a woman, NASA announced. Koch, who arrived at the space station in March, 2019, stayed on mission until February 2020. In December 2019, Koch did brake the record of former NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson, who was in space for 288 days in 2017. The 328-day orbit allowed researchers to study the effect of long-term spaceflights on the body. In March 2019, Koch and Anne McClain were among NASA's top picks for its first woman-led spacewalk, though the trip was later canceled amid a shortage of spacesuits in smaller sizes for women.
- April 17, 2020 – Princess Basmah bint Saud bin Abdulaziz al-Saud, a member of the Saudi royal family, and an outspoken advocate for human rights and women’s rights, said she is being detained without charge in Riyadh with one of her daughters, and that neither of them was told why, despite repeated pleas to the kingdom’s royal court, and to her uncle King Salman. She said was being held in al-Ha’ir prison, a surprise to relatives who thought she was under house arrest. Princess Basmah and her daughter were detained as they tried to leave Saudi Arabia for Switzerland in March, 2019. She declared then she was in urgent need of medical treatment, but her private jet was not allowed to depart. Human Rights Watch (HRW) said the arrest fitted a pattern of dissenters being ruthlessly silenced by Prince Mohammed, who has methodically consolidated power since ousting his uncle Mohammed bin Nayef nearly three years ago, and giving him a clear run to the throne. Rothna Begum, senior women’s rights researcher at HRW, said, “Under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s rampant repression of all forms of critics, including people he can extort money out of, the space for dissent has shrunk greatly. This is particularly the case for women, many of whom have been silenced, imprisoned, or are in exile right now ... We are seeing things that we never saw before in Saudi. There was a time when women of a powerful background could say things about women’s rights and issues that matter ... this has gone.”
- April 17, 2021 – Interviews conducted in 2020 with 23 women and girls who escaped after being kidnapped insurgents in Mozambique offered an unprecedented glimpse inside an opaque and little-known group. The women and girls were interviewed by researchers from the Observatório do Meio Rural (Rural Environment Observatory), a Mozambique-based thinktank. Insurgents in Mozambique had abducted hundreds of women and girls, forcing many into sexual relations with fighters and possibly trafficking others elsewhere in Africa. Most of those abducted are under 18, with the youngest about 12 years old. They were being held in a series of camps and bases across insurgent-controlled territory in north-eastern Mozambique. Many were chosen by young fighters as “wives” and forced into sexual relations. Conditions were extremely harsh, with limited medical care, long marches under guard, unreliable food supplies and a constant risk of attacks by government forces or mercenaries. It is estimated that over 1,000 women and girls had been abducted. The insurgency in Mozambique’s far north, which started in 2017, has killed thousands and displaced almost half a million people.
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- April 18, 1874 – Ivana Brlić-Mažuranić born, Croatian author, poet, essayist, and children’s author; Croatian Tales of Long Ago and The Brave Adventures of Lapitch.
- April 18, 1897 – Angna Enters born, modern dancer, painter, sculptor, arranged music for her solo performances of characters, created more than 250 dance mimes, performed in the White House (1940).
- April 18, 1889 – Jessie Street born, Australian feminist, peace and human rights activist, initiator of the “Aboriginal” amendment of the Australian Constitution. She was Australia’s only woman delegate to the 1945 United Nations Conference on International Organization, where the United Nations Charter was drawn up, and worked with Eleanor Roosevelt and other women delegates to ensure that gender was included with race and religion as a non-discrimination clause in the UN Charter. The Jessie Street National Women’s Library is a unique specialist library dedicated to the preservation of Australian women’s work, words, and history. Established in 1989, it is named for this lifelong campaigner for women’s rights, the peace movement, and the elimination of discrimination against Aboriginal people.
- April 18, 1898 – Ruth Bunzel born, American anthropologist; with Ruth Benedict, she studied the art and culture of southwest Indian women, learned the Zuni language, pottery, and sewing to understand and preserve the culture.
- April 18, 1900 – Dame Albertha Isaacs born, Bahamian politician, women’s rights activist, teacher, and tennis player; she worked as an elementary school teacher, then played tennis professionally in the 1930s; Isaacs was a founding member of the Women’s Branch of the Progressive Liberal Party in 1953, and worked on the campaign to get women the right to vote, which was finally won in 1962. In 1958, she was a founder of the Bahamas National Council of Women. In 1962, Isaacs was the second woman in the Bahamas to be appointed to the Senate.
- April 18, 1905 – Baroness Bertha von Suttner becomes the first woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, and the second woman to receive any Nobel Prize. She wrote one of the 19th century's most influential books, the anti-war novel Lay Down Your Arms.
- April 18, 1906 – Clara Eggink born, Dutch poet, prose writer, and translator; Shadow and Water, The Tenderness That is Silence, and De Rand van de Horizon (The Edge of the Horizon).
- April 18, 1909 – Jeanne d’Arc (Joan of Arc) is beatified by Pope Pius X at Notre Dame de Paris. She had been burned at the stake in 1431 as a heretic by the Church after being found guilty in a politically motivated trial, during which she was denied a legal advisor, the clerics were all pro-English and Burgundian, and she was guarded by English soldiers instead of nuns, as was the custom for women prisoners under Inquisitorial guidelines. One reason for her execution was a Biblical clothing law, used against her because she refused to wear women’s clothes, which offered no protection against rape, as her ability to fasten her hosen, boots and tunic together into one piece did. Her resumption of her military garb after an attempted rape was called a repeat offense of heresy. A posthumous retrial was opened in 1452, authorized by Pope Callixtus III at the request of Inquisitor-General Jean Bréhal and Joan's mother Isabelle Romée. The appellate process involved clergy from throughout Europe and observed standard court procedure. A panel of theologians analyzed testimony from 115 witnesses. Bréhal drew up his final summary in June 1456, which described Joan as a martyr and implicated the late Pierre Cauchon with heresy for having convicted an innocent woman in pursuit of a secular vendetta. The nullification trial reversed the conviction in part because the condemnation proceeding had failed to consider the doctrinal exceptions to the Biblical clothing law. The appellate court declared her innocent on July 7, 1456. She was finally canonized in May 16, 1920, 454 years after she was exonerated and called a martyr.
- April 18, 1914 – Claire Martin born, pen name of French Canadian author Claire Montreuil; noted for her biography, in two volumes, Dans un gant de fer (In an Iron Glove), and La joue droite (The Right Cheek), which won the 1966 Governor General’s Award.
- April 18, 1915 – Joy Davidman born, American author and poet; Smoke on the Mountain: An Interpretation of the Ten Commandments; her marriage to C.S. Lewis inspired the play and film Shadowlands.
- April 18, 1917 – ** Dr. Mamie Phipps Clark born, African American psychologist who devised the “Dolls Test” that was key evidence in Brown v. Board of Education, showing that black children from segregated schools were more likely to choose the yellow-haired white doll as “nice” and “good” and the black-haired brown doll as “bad.”
- April 18, 1919 – Esther Afua Ocloo born in British Togoland (now Ghana), Ghanaian entrepreneur and pioneer of microlending – giving very small loans to help women start their own businesses. She organized the first “Made in Ghana” goods exhibition in 1958, and was the first president of the Federation of Ghana Industries (1959-1961). In 1964, Ocloo was the first woman appointed as Executive Chair of the National Food and Nutrition Board of Ghana; served as adviser to the Council of Women and Development (1976-1986), on the Economic Advisory Committee of Ghana (1978-1979), and as a member of the Council of State (1979-1981) In 1975, she was an adviser to the First World Conference in Women in Mexico City. She was a founding member and first Chair of the Board of Directors of Women’s World Banking (1979-1985).
- April 18, 1923 – Beryl Platt born, Baroness Platt of Writtle, British aeronautical engineer and Conservative politician. During WWII, she worked for the Hawker Aircraft Company, one of only three women in the Experimental Flight Test Department on the testing and production of fighter planes: the Hurricane, the Typhoon, and the Tempest V. After the war, she worked for British European Airways investigating air safety, such as charting procedures to ensure safe landings if an engine failed on take-off or over mountains. Her work helped establish standards of investigation and safety procedures. She left the industry when she married, but after her children began at school, she became a member of the parochial church council, then was nominated to fill a sudden vacancy on the Chelmsford Rural District Council in 1956, and was later appointed as Alderman of the Essex County Council (1969-1974). She was created a Life Peer and joined the House of Lords in 1981, and served as chair of the Equal Opportunities Commission in 1983, spearheading a joint initiative with the Engineering Council to create Women into Science and Engineering (WISE), to encourage more girls and women to enter science and engineering careers.
- April 18, 1944 – Dorothy Cowser Yancy born, American academic, professor, administrator, and mentor for black women students. She was a civil rights activist during her college years, and an active member of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and the Student Government Association. She earned an MA at the University of Massachusetts, a PhD in political science at Atlanta University, and completed the Fulbright Program. She taught at the School of Social Sciences at Georgia Institute of Technology, becoming the first African-American to become a tenured full professor there. She left Georgia Tech in 1994 to become the president of Johnson C. Smith University, in Charlotte, North Carolina. She received Outstanding Teacher of the Year from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1985. In 1988, Newsweek on Campus named her one of the six best teachers in the United States. In 2009, Yancy became president of Shaw University in Raleigh NC.
- April 18, 1944 – Frances D’Souza born, Baroness D’Souza of Wychwood, British scientist, life peer, and cross bencher. She worked for the Nuffield Institute of Brain Chemistry and Human Nutrition (1973–1977), Oxford Polytechnic (1977–1980), and as an independent research consultant for the United Nations (1985-1988). She was the director of Article 19, a human rights organization (1989-2002). D’Souza was created a Lord Temporal in 2004, and was the Convenor of the Crossbench Peers (2007-2011), then was elected Lord Speaker of the House of Lords (2011-2016).
- April 18, 1945 – Margaret Hassan born as Margaret Fitzsimons in Ireland; her family moved to London soon after the end of WWII. She met Tahseen Ali Hassan, an Iraqi studying engineering in the UK, and they were married in 1972. She moved with him to Iraq. Margaret went to work teaching English for the British Council of Baghdad, and began learning Arabic, eventually becoming an Iraqi citizen. Because of the Gulf War (1990-1991), the British Council suspended operations in Iraq, and she went to work for CARE International in 1991. She was crucially involved in bringing leukaemia medicine to child cancer victims in Iraq in 1998, as sanitation, health, and nutrition became major concerns in the sanctioned Iraq. Hassan was a vocal critic of the UN restrictions. She was also opposed to the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. Hassan said Iraqis were already "living through a terrible emergency. They do not have the resources to withstand an additional crisis brought about by military action." By 2004, she was head of Iraqi operations for CARE. Hassan was kidnapped in Baghdad in October 2004. In a video released of her in captivity she pleaded for the withdrawal of British troops. Patients of an Iraqi hospital (where her work had some effect) took to the streets in protest against the hostage takers' actions. On 25 October, between 100 and 200 Iraqis protested outside CARE's offices in Baghdad, demanding her release. Prominent elements of the Iraqi insurgency, such as the Shura Council of Fallujah Mujahideen, along with Iraqi political figures such as the Shia cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, condemned the kidnapping and called for her release. U.S. Marines in Fallujah uncovered the body of an unidentified woman with her legs and arms cut off and throat slit, which was later identified as Hassan. CARE International suspended operations in Iraq because of Hassan's kidnapping. The last CARE project Hassan completed was one for children with spinal injuries. The director of the spinal cord clinic she supported in Baghdad, Qayder al-Chalabi, called her loss a huge blow to all Iraqis.
- April 18, 1947 – Kathy Acker born, American experimental novelist, playwright, poet, essayist, and sex-positive feminist writer; listening to the stories of women whose lives were completely different from her own during her brief stint as a stripper in the mid-1970s had a profound impact her understanding of gender and power relationships and on her early work. She had several long-term relationships with men and was married twice, but was openly bisexual. In 1979, she won the Pushcart Prize for her short story “New York City in 1979.” She wrote some of her most critically acclaimed works while in living in England in the 1980s, then returned to the U.S. as a visiting professor at several universities and colleges. In 1996, she was diagnosed with breast cancer, and lost her faith in conventional medicine after an unsuccessful surgery. In 1997, she died in a Tijuana Mexico alternative cancer treatment clinic.
- April 18, 1959 – Susan Faludi born, American journalist, author, and feminist; best known for her 1991 book, Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women, which warned that women of every generation should not take gains for granted, because progress made will be followed by a negative counter-reaction. Her 1999 book, Stiffed: The Betrayal of the American Man, argues that many American men, trying to live up to the expectations of masculinity, find themselves unemployed or underpaid, because of market rapid shifts, and global companies driven by increasing profits above all else.
- April 18, 1965 – ** American contralto Marian Anderson ends her 54-city farewell tour with a concert at Carnegie Hall – her first tour stop had been Constitution Hall, where the Daughters of the American Revolution had refused to allow her to sing in 1939 because of her race – she gave a concert on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial instead, which was broadcast live on the radio.
- April 18, 1972 – Rosa Clemente born, American community organizer, independent journalist, hip hop activist. In 2008, she was the Green Party running mate of the party’s Presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney. Clemente is the founder and president of Know Thyself Productions, which produces community activism tours.
- April 18, 1984 – America Ferrera born in Los Angeles to Honduran immigrant parents, actress, producer, and author; known for the TV series Ugly Betty and her voice work on the How to Train Your Dragon animated film series; co-producer and co-star with Amy Dubanowski of Superstore (2015-2021). Her book, American Like Me: Reflections on Life Between Cultures, was a bestseller. She has been active in the #MeToo campaign since 2017, and is a founding member of the Time’s Up legal defense fund. She campaigned in 2016 for Hillary Clinton, and for Voto Latino, working to get out the Latino vote, and was the opening speaker at the Women’s March on Washington in 2017.
- April 18, 2007 – The U.S. Supreme Court rules 5-4 to uphold a federal ban on the so-called “partial-birth abortion” – a misnomer invented by anti-abortionists, and also miscalled a “late term abortion” – terms rejected by the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.
- April 18, 2019 – Journalist Lyra McKee, aged 29, was shot to death in Derry during a riot set off during police raids on dissidents attempting to seize munitions before the Easter Rising commemorative parades scheduled for the weekend. Youths threw petrol bombs, setting two vehicles on fire. McKee was standing near an armoured police Land Rover when she was shot in the head during gunfire aimed at the police. Mobile phone footage and police CCTV footage show a masked gunman, believed to be a member of the "New IRA", opening fire with a handgun. McKee was taken by police to Altnagelvin Area Hospital, where she later died. Police blamed dissident republicans for her death. McKee was a Northern Irish journalist who write for several publications about the consequences of ‘The Troubles’ and was an editor for Mediagazer, a news aggregator website. Her funeral on April 24 in Belfast was attended by British Prime Minister Theresa May, Irish President Michael D. Higgins, Taoiseach (Irish equivalent of Prime Minister) Leo Varadkar, Sinn Féin leaders Mary Lou McDonald and Michelle O'Neill, and Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn. Members of the National Union of Journalists formed an honor guard. Speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi, who had visited Derry only a few hours before the events, also condemned the murder.
- April 18, 2020 – In the UK, two hotel chains and a hostel, which asked not to be named, say they made the government a written offer at the beginning of April to provide shelter for victims of domestic violence, but the government snubbed their offer. The National Domestic Abuse Helpline has reported a 25% increase in calls, and domestic abuse killings have trebled since the coronavirus lockdown began, with at least 16 suspected deaths compared with an average of five in the same period over the past decade. Jennifer Nadel, co-director of Compassion in Politics, described the government’s response as “foot-dragging at its most unnecessary, irresponsible and lethal.” Domestic Abuse Commissioner Nicole Jacobs and Victims Commissioner Dame Vera Baird wrote to ministers, “We call on you to offer a hotel … free of charge, to women fleeing domestic abuse where they have been unable to access refuge.”
- April 18, 2021 – In the UK, Astrid Cooper, curator of a complicated contemporary art show, has been pretty hopeless with the paperwork. Not surprising, since she’s only five years old. Will Cooper and his daughter Astrid announced their joint project “My Kid Could’ve Done That,” due to open in the summer of 2021, a display of artwork by over a dozen contemporary artists, all collaborations between the artist and their young child or children. Will Cooper noted: “There are bits of it that she isn’t going to do. She’s not written any loan requests with me. Obviously a five-year-old can’t do everything but I think when I’ve done other shows there has been a lead and one person who does the writing and the paperwork. I guess she is the lead and I’m doing the paperwork.” Father and daughter made Zoom studio visits to the artists and their children who signed up to for the fun project, but Will Cooper hopes it has also has real grit as it explores wider issues around parenting and work. “The separation of professional and personal life, at least for me and my family, has completely eroded,” said Cooper, who uses the bedroom as his place of work four days a week, his wife in the same space three days a week. “We don’t have weekends because we need to use the seven days so we can both do our jobs.” Quite often Astrid plays with her toys under the desk while Cooper taps at his computer. “There is a layer of the show which is joy and fun and messiness and eccentricity and lack of rules that come with making stuff with your kids. But underneath that there is an important, I think, socio-political conversation about what we expect creative people to be able to do and what we expect parents and predominantly mothers to do.” The exhibition, booked into the Edge Arts Centre at the University of Bath, is part of a new partnership with Bath’s Holburne Museum, where Will Cooper is Curator of Contemporary Programmes.
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- April 19, 752 AD – Irene of Athens born, Byzantine empress, consort of Leo IV until his death in 780, when she became regent for her nine-year-old son, Constantine VI, until he reached his majority in 790. Constantine then made himself very unpopular by marrying his mistress, and there were several military defeats during his rule as well. In 797, Irene seized power, and had Constantine blinded and imprisoned; the date of his death was not recorded, but he probably died of his injuries soon after being deposed. She is credited with overturning the iconoclastic (elimination of religious icons) rules made under her husband. Though Irene took the title of Empress, Constantine was the last Eastern ruler to be acknowledged as Roman Emperor by the West and by the papacy. Pope Leo II proclaimed Charlemagne Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire on Christmas Day, 800, declaring that a woman could not rule, so the throne of the Roman Empire was actually vacant. A revolt in 802 overthrew Irene and exiled her to the island of Lesbos, where she died in 803. She was supplanted on the throne by Nikephoros I.
- April 19, 1666 – Sarah Kemble Knight born, colonial American teacher and businesswoman, noted for her diary of her journey from Boston to New York City in 1704-1705.
- April 19, 1806 – Sarah Bagley born, American pioneering labor organizer; advocate for a 10-hour workday for mill workers in Lowell Massachusetts, and expanded her efforts to women’s rights, especially after she discovered when hired as a telegrapher that she was paid one-third less than the man she replaced. She also campaigned for the abolition of slavery, prison reform, and health care for the poor.
- April 19, 1831 – Mary Louise Booth born, American author, translator, and the first editor-in-chief of Harper’s Bazaar (1867-1889). She held a weekly salon on Saturday evenings in her New York City home, an assembly of notables: authors, singers, actors, musicians, statesmen, travelers, publishers, and journalists. She died at age 57 in 1889.
- April 19, 1872 – Alice Salomon born, German pioneer in social work as an academic discipline, and social reformer. In 1900 she joined the Bund Deutscher Frauenvereine (BDF – Federation of German Women’s Associations), and served as deputy chair until 1920. The organization supported destitute, abandoned, or single mothers, and helped prevent their children being neglected. She studied economics at the Friedrich Wilhelm University in Berlin (1902-1906), and earned a doctorate in 1908 with a dissertation entitled Die Ursachen der ungleichen Entlohnung von Männer- und Frauenarbeit (roughly translated as Causes of Pay Inequality Between Men and Women). In 1908, she founded a Soziale Frauenschule (Social Women’s School) in Berlin, which was renamed the Alice Salomon Academy in 1932. In May of 1933, Salomon closed the academy to evade an imminent Gestapo raid. In 1939, she was interrogated by the Gestapo. Salomon’s Jewish origins, her Christian humanist ideas, and her pacifism were all held against her, but her international reputation may have saved her from a worse fate than being stripped of her citizenship, and her two doctorates, then expelled from Germany. However, it ended her work running a relief committee for Jewish emigrants leaving the country. She went to New York City. In 1944, she became an American citizen, and a year later, she was the honorary President of the International Women’s Federation and the International Association of Schools of Social Work. Salomon died in New York in 1948.
- April 19, 1874 – Jane Poupelet born, French sculptor and graphic artist; known for her sculptures of animals and female nudes. She worked with and learned from August Rodin and Lucien Schnegg, and was an active member of the Salon des Indépendants. Early in her career, she submitted some of her work under the pseudonym Simon de la Vergne to avoid the bias against women artists, but by 1908, she was using her own name. During WWI, she worked with American sculptor Anna Coleman Ladd making masks for soldiers whose faces had been mutilated beyond what could be repaired by surgery, making plaster casts of the subject’s faces, filling in the missing parts, and galvanizing the result in copper. After repeated fittings and adjustments, a partial mask which covered the damaged part of the face would be painted to match the skin color of the subject. In 1921, Poupelet was elected president of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts, a great honor for any artist. In 1925, she became too ill to continue sculpting, and switched to drawing her subjects. In 1928, both Anna Coleman Ladd and Jane Poupelet received the Légion d'honneur for their work at the Studio for Portrait Masks. Poupelet died at age 58 in 1932.
- April 19, 1891 – Françoise Rosay born, French actress and opera singer, pioneer in French cinema who appeared in over 100 films.
- April 19, 1892 – Germaine Tailleferre born, French composer, only woman member of a group of composers known as Les Six.
- April 19, 1893 – Jessie Stephen born, British suffragette, labour activist, and local councilor. At age 15, she became a domestic worker, and soon formed the Scottish Federation of Domestic Workers. At age 16, she joined the Women’s Social and Political Union, and on her weekly half-day off, she would go around Glasgow placing incendiary devices in postal pillar boxes. Wearing her maid’s uniform made her virtually invisible, and she wasn’t caught. She joined the Independent Labour Party, and was elected Labour borough councilor for Bermondsey in 1922. When she moved to Bristol in the 1930s, she joined the National Union of Clerks, made public speeches, gave advice on birth control, and was elected to the Bristol City Council. In 1952, she became the first woman president of the Bristol Trades Council.
- April 19, 1894 – Elizabeth Dilling born, ardent Nazi sympathizer, virulent anti-communist, anti-Semitist, and slanderer; in the 1930s, she visited Germany several times, and began attending Nazi Party meetings. The German government paid some of the expenses for her trips to party meetings. In 1932, she co-founded the Paul Reveres, an anti-communist organization, which died out after she had a dispute with her co-founder and left the group. In 1934, she published the infamous Red Network—A Who’s Who and Handbook of Radicalism for Patriots, a catalog of over 1,300 “suspected” communists and their sympathizers, which included Albert Einstein and Chiang Kai-shek, and over 460 organizations described as “Communist, Radical Pacifist, Anarchist, Socialist, I.W.W. controlled” (I.W.W. = International Workers of the World, a socialist labor union). Though she provided no proof of her allegations, copies of her book were bought by the FBI, the Pinkerton Detective Agency, the New York Police Department, and the Chicago Police Department. Dilling publicly accused University of Chicago President Robert Maynard Hutchins, educational reformer John Dewey, social reformer and activist Jane Addams, and Idaho Republican Senator William Borah of being communist sympathizers in 1935, and called on her audience “to kill every communist.” During the 1936 Presidential campaign, she called the New Deal “FDR’s Jew Deal.” In 1939, she testified before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee. She was a leader of the so-called “Mothers’ Movement,” an isolationist campaign to pressure Congress to refrain from helping the Allies, which opposed the Lend-Lease program. Dilling was among 28 isolationists charged with sedition in 1942, but the charges were dropped in 1946. She was a frequent speaker at meetings of America First, the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR), and the American Legion. She died at age 72 in 1966.
- April 19, 1917 – ** Irene Morgan Kirkaldy born; in 1944, she defied a driver on an interstate bus, who ordered her to give up her seat and move to the back. She kicked the sheriff who arrested her. In 1946, Thurgood Marshall, her NAACP legal counsel, won Irene Morgan v. Commonwealth of Virginia, in a 6-1 landmark decision, which ruled the Virginia law was unconstitutional because the federal Commerce Clause protected interstate travel. In 2001, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Clinton, who said she “took the first step on a journey that would change America forever.”
- April 19, 1920 – Marguerite “Peggy” Knight born in Paris to a British father and French mother; during WWII, she joined the Women’s Transport Service, then was recruited in 1944 by the British Special Operations Executive (SOE), where she was rushed through a two-week training course before being sent into Vichy France as a courier for the SOE’s Donkeyman network. Following the Allied invasion at Normandy of June and July 1944, Knight crossed repeatedly crossed enemy lines carrying intelligence information. She also participated in an attack by the French resistance on a German military convoy, firing a Sten submachine gun. Knight narrowly escaped capture and execution later in 1944 when she and a group of resistance fighters were betrayed by one of their number to the Nazis. Knight was one of about 30 fighters who managed to fight through a German encirclement. The man responsible for the betrayal was later arrested, tried, and sentenced as a collaborator after the war. Knight’s service with the SOE ended in November 1944. She was later appointed a member of The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, and awarded the French Croix de Guerre.
- April 19, 1921 – Anna Lee Aldred born, first American woman to receive a jockey’s license, in 1939 at age 18, after officials at the Agua Caliente Racetrack in Mexico couldn’t find any rules that barred women jockeys; she won many races at state and county fairs, but after six years, she had grown too tall for a jockey, so she switched to trick riding in rodeos; inducted into the Cowgirl Hall of Fame in 1983.
- April 19, 1926 – Rawya Ateya born, Egyptian politician, educator, and journalist; first woman parliamentarian in the Arab world when she is elected to the National Assembly of Egypt in 1957; she became involved in protests as a teenager, and was injured in 1939 during an anti-British protest. Her extensive studies and university degrees in education, psychology, journalism, and Islamic studies were unusual for an Egyptian girl of that time. She was a teacher for over ten years. In 1956, she became the first woman to be commissioned as an officer in the Liberation Army, as a captain in the women’s commando unit, but also helped train thousands of women in first aid and nursing. During the 1973 October War, she was chair of the Society of Families of Martyrs and Soldiers. Voting rights and eligibility for elected office were extended to Egyptian women by President Gamal Abdel Nasser through the adoption of the 1956 Constitution. The first elections under the new constitution were held on July 3, 1957. There were only 16 women in a field of more than 2,000 candidates. Opinion polls conducted at the time showed that 70% of Egyptian men were opposed to the idea of women taking seats in Parliament, but she received 110,807 votes in her constituency, and was elected from Cairo in the second round. She described the strong prejudice she faced: "I was met with resentment for being a woman. Yet I talked to them and reminded them of the prophet's wives and families until they changed their opinions." She took her seat in the National Assembly on July 14, 1957. Amina Shukri was the only other woman elected, but her victory was not announced until July 22. Ateya was a champion of women's rights, and campaigned for a two-month maternity leave with full salary. She also presented a law to abolish polygamy, which had some support in urban districts like Cairo and Alexandria, but was strongly opposed in rural districts and did not pass. She lost her bid for re-election in 1959. Ateya then served on the board of the Red Crescent, and other NGOs. She was elected to the People’s Assembly in 1984 under the banner of the National Democratic Party.
- April 19, 1927 – Actress and playwright Mae West is sentenced to 10 days in jail on obscenity charges for her play Sex.
- April 19, 1943 – Margo MacDonald born, Scottish Independent politician (formerly Scottish National Party), broadcaster and teacher; Member of Parliament for Glasgow Govan (1973-1974); Depute Leader of the Scottish National Party (1974-1979); Member of the Scottish Parliament for Lothian (1999-2014). She left the Scottish National Party in 1982, protesting the party’s proscription of the 79 Group, the socialist faction within the party of which she was a leading member. She died in 2014, 17 years after she was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease.
- April 19, 1946 – Duygu Asena born, Turkish journalist, editor, best-selling author, and women’s rights activist. Her degree from Istanbul University was in Pedagogy, and she taught for two years, but began contributing to the large Turkish newspaper Hürriyet in 1972, then worked as a copywriter for an advertising agency (1976-1978). She became editor-in-chief of a magazine publishing house in 1978, where she developed several women’s magazines, including Kadınca (1978-1998), the first popular feminist magazine in the Republic of Turkey, and a significant media outlet for the Turkish feminist movement. She was a frequent contributor, writing about marriage, inequality, and violence against women. Her first book, Kadının Adı Yok (The Woman Has No Name), published in 1987, was a sharp critique of the oppression of Turkish women and marriage without love. It became a top seller, but was banned in 1998 by the Turkish government, which declared it obscene, dangerous for children and undermining marriage. After two years of lawsuits, the ban was lifted. Her second book, Aslında Aşk da Yok (Actually, There is Also No Love) was another bestseller in Turkey, and was translated into several other languages. All the rest of her books were bestsellers, including Kahramanlar Hep Erkek (Heroes Are Always Men); and her last book, Paramparça (Torn In Pieces). She died in 2006, after two years battling brain cancer.
- April 19, 1949 – Paloma Picasso born, French-Spanish jewelry designer and businesswoman, the daughter of artists Pablo Picasso and Françoise Gilot. She was working as a costume designer in Paris in 1968, when she made some rhinestone necklaces that attracted attention, and decided to study jewelry design. Some of her first pieces were used by Yves Saint Laurent to accessorize one of his collections. By 1980, she was designing jewelry for Tiffany & Company of New York. In 1984, she started experimenting with fragrance, and created the “Paloma” perfume for L’Oréal.
- April 19, 1950 – Dame Julia Cleverdon born, British charity executive; Chief Executive of Business in the Community (1992-2008), one of the Prince’s Charities of Charles, Prince of Wales, after being Director of the Education and Inner City Division of The Industrial Society (renamed the Work Foundation in 2002), a nonprofit which provides advice, consultancy and research to business organizations and government on the quality of working life and future of work issues.
- April 19, 1953 – Ruby Wax born, American comedian, actress, author, and mental health campaigner who has lived in England since the 1970s. Noted for starring as a comic interviewer in The Full Wax (1991-1994) and Ruby Wax Meets ... (1994-1998), and as script editor for the BBC hit series Absolutely Fabulous (1992-2012). Her memoir, How Do You Want Me?, was a Sunday Times best-seller. She appeared in several British Comic Relief productions, which raised millions of pounds for charitable causes.
- April 19, 1956 – Dame Anne Glover born, Scottish molecular biologist and academic; Chief Scientific Adviser to the President of the European Commission (2012- 2014), the first ever appointed to the position from Scotland, she expanded the position’s role, becoming an influential voice for the importance of science policy based on evidence.
- April 19, 1959 – Jane Campbell born, Baroness Campbell of Surbiton, life peer and crossbencher in the House of Lords, and disability reform campaigner; Commissioner of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC – 2006–2008), and Chair of the Disability Committee which lead on the EHRC Disability Programme. She was born with spinal muscular atrophy, and must use an electrically powered wheelchair to move around, a computer on which she types with one finger, a ventilator to help her breathe at night, and a rotation of caregivers to assist her. She attended a segregated school for disabled children, with little focus on academic achievement, leaving the school at age 16 with no qualifications, and poor reading and writing skills. She enrolled at Hereward College, a special college for disabled students where there was an academic environment, and earned six O-levels (ordinary competency in subject) and three A-levels (advanced, pre-university level in subject) within three years, and went on to Hatfield Polytechnic, and then got an MA at the University of Sussex with a dissertation on Sylvia Pankhurst. In 1996, she co-founded and was director of the National Centre for Independent Living (NCIL) for the organization’s first six years, which a was leading pioneer in independent living, civil rights, peer counseling and equal opportunities for the disabled. She also wrote Disability Politics in 1996. In 2002, she was appointed by the Minister for Social Care to Chair the Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE).
- April 19, 1964 – “Kim” Kimberly Weaver born, American astrophysics astronomer and expert in x-ray astronomy; Weaver has worked on several projects for NASA, and is frequently seen on television answering questions about astronomy. Author of The Violent Universe: Joyrides Through the X-Ray Cosmos. She has been honored with several awards, including the 2009 Robert H. Goddard Exceptional Achievement Award in Outreach.
- April 19, 1968 – Ashley Judd born, American actress and political activist; best known for her performances in the films Kiss the Girls, Double Jeopardy, De-Lovely and the Divergent series, and in the television series Missing. In 2010, she earned a one-year mid-career master’s degree in public administration from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. She is an active supporter of the Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund and the Animal Legal Defense Fund, a Global Ambassador for YouthAIDS, and made trips to the Democratic Republic of the Congo for the Enough Project, campaigning to end genocide and crimes against humanity, visiting hospitalized victims of sexual violence and camps for displaced persons. Judd has campaigned extensively for Democratic candidates in local and national races, including Barack Obama. She took part in the 2017 Women’s March, reading “Nasty Woman,” a poem by Nina Donovan.
- April 19, 1969 – Susan (Zsuzsa) Polgár born in Hungary, American chess Grandmaster, coach, writer, and head of the Susan Polgar Institute for Chess Excellence (SPICE) at Webster University. She was the head coach for the 2011 and 2012 National Championship college chess teams at Texas Tech University and the 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017 National Championship teams at Webster University. In the July 1984 FIDE Rating List, at age 15 she was the top-ranked woman player in the world, and remained in the top three for the next 23 years, and was the Women’s World Champion (1996-1999). Polgár was the first woman to break the gender barrier by qualifying for the 1986 Men’s World Chess Championship.
- April 19, 1977 – In the U.S. House of Representatives, 15 women, led by co-chairs Elizabeth Holtzman (Democrat-New York) and Margaret Heckler (Republican-Massachusetts), form the Congressional Caucus for Women’s Issues.
- April 19, 1978 – Amanda Sage born, American painter who has studied and worked in Vienna and Los Angeles; co-founder of the Academy of Visionary Art in Vienna, and the Colorado Alliance for Visionary Art.
- April 19, 2018 – Senator Tammy Duckworth (Democrat – Illinois) made history when she brought her newborn daughter, Maile Pearl Bowlsbey, to the Senate floor for a vote. Duckworth gave birth to Maile, her second child, on April 9. On April 17, the Senate voted unanimously to reverse a long-standing rule, and allow babies into the Senate chamber. The move allowed Duckworth to bring the baby to Capitol Hill, where Duckworth cast a vote against the confirmation of Jim Bridenstine for NASA administrator. Leaving the chamber after her vote, Duckworth told reporters that it felt "amazing" to have her baby daughter with her on the floor. "It's about time," she said.
- April 19, 2019 – In Ireland, two men were arrested in connection with the murder of journalist Lyra McKee in Derry, Northern Ireland. McKee, 29, had been shot and killed amid a riot in Derry as she watched Irish nationalist youths clash with police during a riot. Police believe the suspects in the murder are linked to the dissident republican group the New Irish Republican Army, an offshoot of the Irish Republican Army which remains opposed to the 1998 Good Friday Agreement and the fragile ceasefire in Northern Ireland. McKee's murder follows the explosion of a large car bomb in Derry in January, 2019, which was also blamed on the New IRA. Northern Ireland's political leaders — nationalists and unionists alike — urged calm following the violence a riot set off during police raids on dissidents (see April 18, 2019).
- April 19, 2020 – Prime Minister Silveria Jacobs of Sint Maarten gave a video address to her Carribbean country: “Simply. Stop. Moving. If you do not have the type of bread you like in your house, eat crackers. If you do not have bread, eat cereal, eat oats, sardines.” She advised citizens to prepare as if a Hurricane was on the way, but not to hoard toilet paper. Her no-nonsense approach to the pandemic brought the little-known Jacobs international media attention. Like several other women world leaders, she took decisive action early, and delivered clear messages. Her calm but determined presence has kept her people focused on what must and can be done.
- April 19, 2021 – Germany’s Greens named Annalena Baerbock, the party’s co-chair, as their candidate for chancellor in the federal election, as Angela Merkel of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU, a centre-right party) finishes her term after announcing she would not seek reelection. Baerbock is the first person nominated by her party for chancellor. She is viewed as a tenacious, down-to earth centrist with an eye for detail, as an expert on climate change and how to tackle it, and described her candidacy as “an offer, an invitation to lead our diverse, prosperous, strong country into a good future.” However, Olaf Scholz, of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), was elected in December 2021, forming a coalition agreement with Alliance 90/The Greens, and the Free Democratic Party (FDP).
- April 19, 2022 – The graphic novel, Power On! by authors Jean Ryoo and Jane Margolis will be released, which offers insights on how students of all ages can become more aware of the ethical complexities of technology and how technology intersects with systemic inequality and racism, and how youth and educators can get involved to support positive social change through computer science education. It is illustrated by Charis JB (she/her), a Black-biracial Latinx artist.
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- April 20, 1544 – Renata of Lorraine born; there were several marriages proposed for her, but none of them came to fruition, until Renata married her cousin William, in 1568, when she was 23 years old, and he was 20. The two preferred to live simply, and Renata spent much of her time caring for the sick, the poor, and religious pilgrims. After William became William V, the Duke of Bavaria, in 1579, she became heavily involved with Herzogspitalkirche (Duke’s hospital-church), now a Catholic church in Munich. Renata gave birth to 10 children, but their first child died at birth, and three of the other children died in childhood. Renata died at age 58 in 1602.
- April 20, 1826 – Dinah M. Craik born, English novelist and poet; The Ogilivies; John Halifax, Gentleman; and A Life for a Life.
- April 20, 1890 – Carmelita Hinton born, secretary to Jane Addams for 2 years; committed to John Dewey’s education philosophy, environmentalism, internationalism and arts and crafts; founds Putney co-ed boarding school in Vermont (1935).
- April 20, 1890 – Marie-Thérèse Le Chêne born, Frenchwoman who fled from France to England with her husband Henri, who had dual French-English citizenship, and his brother Pierre, early in WWII. She was working as a cook in a hotel when the men joined the Special Operations Executive (SOE) and returned to France. She became one of the first women SOE agents, and at age 52, the oldest female agent, in May, 1942. In November, 1942 she was landed by boat near Cassis in southern France with three other SOE agents, then joined her husband Henri, who had organized the SPRUCE network in Lyon, but he quickly moved the network to Clermont-Ferrand. Originally, she was the network’s courier, but she soon began distributing political pamphlets and anti-German leaflets across southern France. Workers at the Michelin factory in Clermont-Ferrand began sabotaging production and delivering inferior tyres to the Germans. In January 1943, Pierre, who was the network’s radio operator, was arrested. Henri Le Chêne shut down the network, and left France via the Pyrenees, but he was jailed when he reached Spain. Too tired to join him in the rigorous crossing of the Pyrenees, Marie-Thérèse Le Chêne hid in friends' homes, and was evacuated by the SOE in August, 1943. Pierre was sent to Mauthausen concentration camp, and barely survived. When he was liberated by the Americans in May 1945, he weighed 83 pounds and was suffering from typhoid. Marie-Thérèse and her husband were reunited in England, after he escaped from the Spanish jail. The three of them returned to France in 1946, and ran a hotel in Sainte-Menehould, in northeastern France.
- April 20, 1895 – Mary Pukui born, descendant of native Hawaiian high priestesses, researched and collected stories and oral histories, became translator at Bishop Museum, wrote songs and gave hula demonstrations in schools in the 1950s.
- April 20, 1902 — Scientists Marie and Pierre Curie isolate the radioactive element radium.
- April 20, 1908 – In Denmark, women win the right to vote in municipal elections, but can’t vote in national elections until June 1915.
- April 20, 1920 – Frances R. Ames born, South African neurologist, psychiatrist and human rights activist; the first woman to receive a Doctor of Medicine degree from the University of Cape Town in 1964; studied the effects of cannabis, and became a proponent of the therapeutic benefits of cannabis, particularly for people with multiple sclerosis (MS). Ames is most notable for leading a medical ethics inquiry into the 1977 death of Steven Biko, who was severely beaten in police custody, but the doctor who examined him said there was no evidence of injury. After examination by two other doctors, he was transported 740 miles (1190 km) to Pretoria’s prison hospital, unattended by medical personnel, and died there of a massive brain hemorrhage. The official investigations afterwards resulted in no charges against the police or the doctors involved, so Ames, with five academics, raised funds to fight an eight-year battle against the medical establishment, risking her career and personal safety, all the way to the South African Supreme Court, where she finally won the case in 1985.
- April 20, 1923 – Irene Lieblich born in Poland, Jewish painter, poet, and illustrator for the books of Isaac Bashevis Singer, Holocaust survivor.
- April 20, 1926 – ** Harriet Elizabeth Byrd born in Wyoming, Democratic politician, the first African-American elected to the Wyoming legislature. After earning a BA in education in 1949, she was unable to find a teaching position in the Laramie County School District because of her race, but was hired as a civilian instructor at Francis E. Warren Air Force Base, west of Cheyenne. In 1959, the Laramie County School District reversed its earlier decision and hired her as an elementary school teacher. She worked for the school district in Cheyenne for 27 years. In 1980, Byrd won election to the Wyoming House of Representatives, serving the 44th district (1981-1988), then was elected to the Wyoming Senate, serving the 8th district (1988-1992). Her husband James W. Byrd, became the first African-American police chief in Wyoming, and their son James was elected to the Wyoming House of Representatives (2009-2019). Harriet Elizabeth Byrd died at age 88 in 2015.
- April 20, 1939 – ** Billie Holiday records the Civil Rights song “Strange Fruit” with words from a poem written by Abel Meeropol exposing racism and the lynching of black Americans. The Emmett Till Antilynching Act, declaring lynching a federal hate crime, was finally passed by Congress in March, 2022, and signed into law by President Biden.
- April 20, 1947 – Rita Dionne-Marsolais born, French Canadian economist and Parti Québécois politician; Member of the National Assembly of Quebec for Rosemont (1994-2008).
- April 20, 1952 – Louka Katseli born, Greek economist and KOISY (Social Agreement Party) politician and president of her party (2012-2015); Minister for Labour and Social Security (2010-2011); during the Greek economic crisis, she was Minister for the Economy, Competitiveness and Shipping (2009-2010); then served as president of the Greek Banks Union (2015-2016).
- April 20, 1956 – Beatrice Ask born, Swedish Moderate Party politician; Alderman of the House since 2018; Member of the Swedish Riksdag (Parliament) for Stockholm Municipality since 1988; Minister for Justice (2006-2014); Minister for Schools (1991-1994).
- April 20, 1959 – Cheryl Carolus born, South African political activist and civil servant; active member of the South African Students’ Organisation (SASO), and one of the founding members of the United Democratic Front (UDF) in 1983. Carolus served as the General Secretary of the Federation of South African Women (Fedsaw) from 1987. She was arrested several times and often harassed for her political beliefs. In 1990, she played a crucial role during the Groote Schuur negotiations, as a member of the African National Congress (ANC) delegation that met with the Apartheid government. In 1991, she was elected to the ANC’s Executive Committee. She became South Africa’s High Commissioner in London in 1998. She was the chief executive officer of South Africa Tourism (2001-2004). Currently a member of the Executive Committee of the International Crisis Group, and Executive Chair of Peotrona Group Holdings.
- April 20, 1963 – Rachel Whiteread born, English artist primarily known for her sculptures; in 1993, she became the first woman to win the Turner Prize for best artist under 50 of the year. The same year, she also awarded the K Foundation Award for Worst Artist. She was one of the Young British Artists exhibited at the Royal Academy’s 1997 Sensation exhibition.
- April 20, 1970 – Sarantuya born, known professionally as Saraa, Mongolian mezzo-soprano, recognized as the queen of Mongolian pop music, and the highest-selling Mongolian singer; she began her career singing with the band Mungun Harandaa (Silver Pencil).
- April 20, 2008 – Danica Patrick wins the Indy Japan 300 becoming the first woman driver in history to win an Indy car race.
- April 20, 2018 – Alejandra Pablos, immigrant rights and reproductive-rights activist with Mijente, was freed from the for-profit Eloy Detention Center, where she was detained for more than 40 days after she reported to a routine ICE check-in on March 7, 2018. Advocates say she was detained in retaliation for her activism, particularly for protesting outside the Homeland Security Department office in Virginia earlier this year. Alejandra Pablos, speaking in a Facebook video after being released, said: “I come out with so much like more intel, more stories inside, more ideas, more dreams of like how we’re going to get our women back. If we can’t destroy these walls, we’ve got to steal them back. The fight just has begun ... Stay with me. We’ve got to ask [Arizona] Governor Ducey to do the right thing and to pardon me, to let me stay here without fear. I’m tired of feeling scared. I’m tired of being persecuted for just defending my life and defending everybody else.” In December 2018, an immigration judge in Arizona stripped Pablos of her green card, and ordered her deportation. Her lawyers filed an appeal, and she was granted bond and returned home while it was pending.
- April 20, 2020 – Research at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg in Germany indicates that high levels of air pollution may be “one of the most important contributors” to deaths from Covid-19. The analysis shows that of the coronavirus deaths across 66 administrative regions in Italy, Spain, France, and Germany, 78% of them occurred in just five regions, and these were the most polluted regions. A separate study in the U.S. also found higher coronavirus death rates in areas of the country with higher levels of fine particle pollution. Jenny Bates, a British clean air campaigner at Friends of the Earth, expressed concern: “This new study is worrying. We know NO2 is a toxic gas that inflames the lining of the lungs and reduces immunity to lung infections, so it may not be surprising that people ... in areas with high levels of NO2 could be more susceptible to coronavirus. This is all the more reason to keep traffic and pollution levels down as much as possible now and get out of this terrible situation with a view to fewer but cleaner vehicles on the road.”
- April 20, 2021 – Julie Schablitsky, the chief archeologist for Maryland’s state highway administration, was using a metal detector, hoping for nails or other signs of a long-abandoned home, when she found an 1808 coin imprinted with the word ‘liberty.’ Schablitsky said in an interview, “When this thing came out of the ground, I was shocked.” Her discovery in November, 2020, gave her team hope that they might be getting close to finding the one-time home of Ben Ross, father of the famed Underground Railroad conductor, political activist, and abolitionist Harriet Tubman. Federal and state officials announced on this day that the team did find Ross’s cabin site at Maryland’s Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge, on land recently acquired by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Harriet Tubman is believed to have spent time at the cabin as a child and teenager. Surrounded by wetlands and woods, she would have had the chance to learn how to survive conditions like the ones she endured to escape slavery, and to free dozens of others from bondage. “It gives us another vantage point to learn about and understand who Harriet Tubman is,” Schablitsky said. “A lot of times, we see her as an older woman leading people to freedom, when in reality she was, you know, a young child and a young woman at one point.” Researchers were able to identify the search area for Ross’s home through historical wills and land deeds, but they didn’t know exactly where X marked the spot. In addition to the 1808 coin, Schablitsky’s team had found pieces of 19th century dishes in November. Then, in March, they began unearthing other artifacts – a hinge, drawer pulls, nails, and a button. The archaeologists were able to date those objects to the first half of the 19th century, when Ross had lived there. The remnants were found at the fringe of the marsh, which has migrated up into the woods as rising sea levels have killed off forests in the area. Schablitsky remembers finding holes they had dug filled with groundwater the following morning. Some of the land in the area is projected to be underwater by 2100. In a few more years, if sea levels continue to rise, the site might have been lost forever. The artifacts will end up on display at the nearby Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Visitor Center. Marcia Pradines, project leader at the Chesapeake Marshlands national wildlife refuge, which includes the Blackwater national wildlife refuge, said, “Landscapes and nature – they make us who we are. And to be able to share the story of how this particular parcel shaped the lives of Harriet Tubman, Ben Ross and all the other people who worked that landscape back then and share their stories is something that we don’t always get to do.”
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- April 21, 1814 – Baroness Angela Burdett-Coutts born, “the richest heiress in England” was a philanthropist who spent the majority of her wealth on scholarships, endowments, and such projects as Urania Cottage, a home to reform young women who had turned to theft or prostitution, which she co-founded with Charles Dickens. She was dedicated to improving conditions among the poor, both in England and abroad. Burdett-Coutts also paid for the famous statue of Greyfriars Bobby, and was a notable supporter of the both Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and of the Church of England.
- April 21, 1816 – Charlotte Brontë born, English novelist and poet, eldest of the three Brontë sisters who were authors; she is best known as the author of Jane Eyre.
- April 21, 1859 – Belle Case LaFollette born, lawyer, suffragist, women’s rights activist and lecturer, anti-segregationist, and pacifist. She taught high school in Wisconsin, then returned to school, and in 1885 became the first woman to earn a law degree from the University of Wisconsin Law School. She and her husband Robert were prominent leaders of the Prairie Populist movement of 1890s to 1920s. She was co-editor of La Follette’s Weekly Magazine, which later became The Progressive, and wrote a column for it called “Home and Education.” In 1915, she helped found the Woman’s Peace Party, which later evolved into the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF). She also went on a national lecture tour speaking for women’s right to vote.
- April 21, 1879 – Raden Ayu Kartini born, women’s rights activist, Javanese and Indonesian national heroine. In 1903 she opened the 1st Indonesian primary school for girls not based on social status, with a progressive academic curriculum. Her arranged marriage to a man 26 years older who already had 3 wives and 12 children ended in her death from childbirth complications. Kartini Day is a National Day on April 21 in Java and throughout Indonesia in her honor.
- April 21, 1891 – Georgia Harkness born, theologian, first woman to become a full professor in a United States theological seminary, leader in ecumenical movement and advocate for ordination for women in American Methodism.
- April 21, 1912 – Eve C. Arnold born, American photojournalist who documented migrant workers, Apartheid protesters in South Africa, disabled Vietnam veterans, and Mongolian herdsmen, but also photographed iconic figures from Marilyn Monroe to Malcolm X to Queen Elizabeth II, and did a series of portraits of American First Ladies.
- April 21, 1916 – Estella Diggs born, African-American businesswoman, author, philanthropist, and politician; New York State Assemblywoman (1973-1980) representing the Morrisania section of the Bronx; responsible for the first Women’s, Infants, and Children’s program in the state.
- April 21, 1930 – Hilda Hilst born, influential Brazilian author, poet, and playwright; noted for her poetry collection, Presságio (Omen), and her novels, Com meus olhos de cão (With My Dog Eyes) and A obscena senhora D (The Obscene Madame D).
- April 21, 1932 – Elaine May born, American actress, director, and screenwriter, two-time Academy Award nominee, and recipient of the National Medal of Arts.
- April 21, 1939 – Sister Helen Prejean born, Roman Catholic sister, leading American advocate for abolishing the death penalty, and author of Dead Man Walking. Chair of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty (1993-1995); helped to establish the Moratorium Campaign.
- April 21, 1944 – French women win the right to vote from the French provisional government.
- April 21, 1965 – Fiona Kelleghan born, American critic, academic, and metadata librarian; expert in the science fiction, fantasy, and horror genres.
- April 21, 1971 – Samantha Druce born, British swimmer who became the youngest person to swim the English Channel, making the crossing in 15 hours, 27 minutes, on August 18, 1983. She was 12 years, 118 days old at the time, breaking Alison Wetherly’s record of 16 hours, four minutes, set earlier on the same day. Wetherly was 43 days older than Druce.
- April 21, 2018 – In Stockton, California, a 110-page Report on the Status of Women in Stockton was released at a conference, revealing that women in the city were paid less than men, are more likely to be the head of their household in Stockton than in many other communities, and that the majority of Stockton’s single mothers are earning less than $25,000 a year. The study, conducted over the year in 2017, was spearheaded by Anna Nti-Asare-Tubbs, wife of Stockton Mayor Michael Tubbs. “It is becoming clearer and clearer that the issues affecting women in Stockton have for too long been ignored,” Nti-Asare-Tubbs said. The conference was held in a room packed with Stockton leaders and activists, including state Assemblywoman Susan Eggman; Vanessa Sheared, the dean of University of the Pacific’s Benerd School of Education; Kay Ruhstaller, the executive director of the Family Resource & Referral Center; and Dawn Bohulano Mabalon, co-founder of the Little Manila Foundation. Mabalon said, “This is probably the most important conversation we can have.” Nti-Asare-Tubbs, who is pursuing a doctoral degree, added, “I believe that we in Stockton can help to address the negatives. Stockton can be an example for the entire nation of what we can do when we listen to women.”
- April 21, 2020 – A new study published in the Journal of the American Heart Association found that women under age 65 with coronary artery disease are more likely to die if they live in rural areas of the United States, and premature deaths among them have surged. Roughly 20% of Americans live in rural areas, where death rates due to coronary artery disease rose 11.2% for 55- to 64-year-old women between 2010 and 2017. They also rose 11.4% among 45- to 54-year-old women between 1999 and 2017. Dr. Federico Moccetti, a cardiologist and research fellow, said: "Women living in rural areas of the United States have for the first time suffered an increase in premature deaths from coronary artery disease. This is in stark contrast to their urban counterparts, who have experienced a virtually uninterrupted reduction in premature coronary artery disease deaths ... Since the increase in deaths is among younger women, this means that it is the result of exposure to risk factors that occurred during young adulthood, adolescence and even childhood."
- April 21, 2021 – The needs of Black women and girls have become a focus of philanthropic efforts as major donors seek to narrow a racial wealth gap and address chronic funding disparities for groups that serve minority women. initiatives from the Ford Foundation, Goldman Sachs and a group of activists and philanthropic leaders. Collectively, they're seeking to increase funding to organizations for Black girls and feminists and to enhance economic opportunities for Black women. Goldman Sachs plans to tailor its investments to education and workforce advancement, among other needs. Two other funds are still assessing how they will disseminate their grants. Statistics show that organizations for Black women have been disproportionately neglected by foundations. In 2017, one of the latest years for which comprehensive data is available, less than 1% of the $67 billion that foundations contributed went to organizations that specifically target minority women and girls, according to a report from the Ms Foundation for Women and the consulting group Strength in Numbers. Less than $15 million was specified as benefiting Black women and girls. Those findings helped launch the Black Girl Freedom Fund, established in September by eight Black women in philanthropy and activism, including Tarana Burke, who is credited with starting the Me Too movement. Its first campaign is 1Billion4BlackGirls, which calls for $1 billion in contributions earmarked for Black girls over the next decade. Co-founder Monique Morris, who also leads the philanthropic organization Grantmakers for Girls of Color, says it wants to have the $1 billion in contributions come from across the philanthropic community. The Black Girl Freedom Fund will seek to support legal advocacy and fight against what it calls "structural violence enacted against Black girls.” As part of this effort, the fund partnered with the television production company Shondaland for a December episode of the show Grey’s Anatomy. The episode portrayed two Black girls being kidnapped by a human trafficker, reflecting a social problem the fund wanted to address: A report from the U.S. Justice Department that analyzed suspected human trafficking from 2008 to 2010, found that the overwhelming majority of sex trafficking victims were women and 40% were Black.
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- April 22, 1766 – Germaine de Staël born, French author, essayist, social commentator, and political agitator. She was the daughter of wealthy Swiss parents. Her father was a banker, while her mother held a brilliant and influential salon in Paris renowned for its wide-ranging “conversations.” Germaine de Staël’s own salon was attended by leading intellectuals and literary lights from across Europe and England as well. A passionate supporter of ‘Liberté, égalité, fraternité,’ Madame de Staël quickly became disenchanted with Napoleon, using her considerable wit to deride him. Napoleon banished her from Paris, and she spent 10 years in exile in Switzerland. In exile, she became the fulcrum of the Coppet group, using her unrivalled network of contacts across Europe. In 1814, Madame de Chastenay, one of her contemporaries, observed that "there are three great powers struggling against Napoleon for the soul of Europe: England, Russia, and Madame de Staël."
- April 22, 1830 – Emily Davies born, English feminist, pioneer in securing university education for women; co-founder and early head of Girton College, Cambridge, the first college in England to educate women.
- April 22, 1858 – Dame Ethel Smyth born, British composer whose work ranged from conventional to experimental. She studied at the Leipzig Conservatory, and was encouraged by Johannes Brahms and Antonín Dvořák. It was her sweeping Mass in D (1893) that first brought her favorable notice, but her best-known work is the opera The Wreckers (1906). She was strongly involved in the woman suffrage movement, and wrote March of the Women in 1911 to words by Cicely Hamilton, which became the official anthem of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), and was also sung by many other women’s rights groups. Her comic opera The Boatswain’s Mate (1916) enjoyed considerable success. She was the first woman composer in the UK to be honored as a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE). Smyth wrote a multivolume autobiography, Impressions That Remained.
- April 22, 1873 – Ellen Glasgow born, American author, wrote about post-Civil War South, recipient of 1942 Pulitzer Prize for her novel In This Our Life. Her autobiography, The Woman Within, was published posthumously in 1954.
- April 22, 1891 – Laura Gilpin born, photographer, acclaimed for mastery of platinum printing process in early 1920s, her early work with autochromes of still-life and portraits recorded 35 years of vanishing rural America, elected Associate of the Royal Photographic Society of Great Britain (1930), wrote The Enduring Navaho (1968).
- April 22, 1900 – Nellie Beer born, second woman to be Lord Mayor of Manchester (1966-1967); she was the first chair of the Manchester Children’s Committee (1948-1952), and a member of the Manchester City Council (1937-1972). After her father died when she was 14, she worked in a blouse factory, and went to night school. She became a dressmaker for a large Manchester store, joined the Conservative Party during WWI, and went on to complete her secondary education. Awarded the title of Honorary Freeman of Manchester in 1974.
- April 22, 1901 – Vera Maxwell born, sportswear clothing designer whose popular and practical styles starting in 1947 permitted greater freedom of motion, favored by Lillian Gish, Martha Graham and Pat Nixon, subject of two retrospective exhibits at the Smithsonian Institution (1970).
- April 22, 1904 – Dorothy Alexander born, American ballet dancer, choreographer; founder of the Atlanta Ballet.
- April 22, 1909 – Rita Levi-Montalcini born, Italian-American neurologist; she began her studies of the nervous system at the University of Turin, but after Mussolini’s 1938 order banning all “non-Aryans” (Jews) from participation in any kind of professional engagement, she set up a lab in her home and studied normal and abnormal neural development in chick embryos. In 1952, at a cell culture laboratory in Rio de Janeiro, she carried out studies on nerve growth factor (NGF), which stimulates and influences both the normal and abnormal the growth of nerve cells in the body, and found effective ways to detect a chemical exuded by tumors that produced astonishing growths of nerve fibers. Her work became the basis of a new understanding of medical conditions like tumors, developmental malformations, and dementia. She shared the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1986 with Stanley Cohen for her discovery of NGF. She was awarded the U.S. National Medal of Science in 1987. In 2009, she became the first Nobel laureate to reach the age of 100, and was the oldest living laureate until her death in 2012 at age 103.
- April 22, 1912 – Kathleen Ferrier born, English singer, contralto with an international reputation, her repertoire includes folksongs, ballads, and classical works. In 1946, Ferrier made her stage debut, in the Glyndebourne Festival premiere of Benjamin Britten's opera The Rape of Lucretia. A year later she made her first appearance as Orfeo in Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice, the role for which she was most noted. By her own choice, these were her only two operatic roles. Ferrier was diagnosed with breast cancer in March 1951. In between periods of hospitalisation and convalescence she continued to perform and record; her final public appearance was as Orfeo, at the Royal Opera House in February 1953, just eight months before her death. Among her many memorials, the Kathleen Ferrier Cancer Research Fund was launched in 1954. The Kathleen Ferrier Scholarship Fund, administered by the Royal Philharmonic Society, has since 1956 made annual awards to aspiring young professional singers.
- April 22, 1916 – Ruth A. M. Schmidt born, American geologist and paleontologist; she spent most of her career in Alaska, establishing a field office for the U.S. Geological Survey, and the first Department of Geology at Anchorage Community College, now part of the University of Alaska Anchorage. She directed the initial assessment of the damage done to the city of Anchorage by the Great Alaska Earthquake, the largest earthquake in North American history, and the second largest earthquake ever to be recorded. She worked for the USGS in Washington, DC during the era of McCarthyism and was investigated twice for disloyalty because of her membership in the interracial Washington Cooperative Bookshop, which had been on the U.S. Attorney General’s List of Subversive Organizations, based on information kept secret; the organizations listed were not given any chance to see the ‘evidence’ against them, or to refute the allegation that they were subversive. Schmidt was cleared in hearings before the Department of Interior Loyalty Board in 1950 and 1954. She set up the Schmidt Charitable Trust to provide assistance for Alaska students who study earth sciences, with special preference for Alaska Natives and other ethnic minorities, and was also an enthusiastic mentor and role model for women in the sciences.
- April 22, 1917 – Yvette Chauviré born, French prima ballerina and étoile with the Paris Opera Ballet and the Nouveau Ballet de Monte Carlo, as well as appearing as a guest performer with other companies. After her retirement from the Paris Opera Ballet in 1956, she continued to appear with the company until 1972, and danced several times with Rudolf Nureyev. She was co-director of the company’s school (1963-1968), and choreographed some short ballets. In 1970, she became Director of the International Academy of Dance in Paris.
- April 22, 1923 – Paula Fox born, American author of novels for adults and children. For her children’s books, she won the prestigious biennial Hans Christian Andersen Award in 1978, as well as the 1974 Newbery Medal for The Slave Dancer, and a 1983 National Book Award in category Children's Fiction (paperback) for A Place Apart. Her book for adults, The Widow’s Children, is often cited as her best novel. She also wrote two memoirs: Borrowed Finery and The Coldest Winter: A Stringer in Liberated Europe.
- April 22, 1928 – Margaret Pereira born, English forensic scientist; she began her career as a scientific assistant at the Metropolitan Police Forensic Science Laboratory in 1947. During the evening, she took classes and earned a Bachelor of Science degree from London University in 1953. Pereira worked with Lewis Nicholls, who served as her laboratory director in 1960. Together, they developed a method to investigate even extremely small amounts of bloodstains to determine the blood type of the subject, known as the Nicholls and Pereira (N&P) method. She worked on several high-profile murders during her career, including the Claire Josephs murder in 1968, where her work on saliva, clothing fibers, blood stains, and dog hairs led to identifying the killer, and the murder of Sandra Rivett, Lord Lucan’s nanny, examining blood smears and spatter on the walls and flooring, then finding a connection between the blood on the murder weapon and blood found in Lord Lucan's car, leading to the conviction of Lord Lucan as the murderer. She was the first woman in forensic science in the UK to serve as an expert witness and present evidence in court. In 1976, Margaret Pereira became the first woman director of the Forensic Science Service (FSS). She was appointed commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1985, and retired in 1988. She died at age 88 in 2016.
- April 22, 1935 – Bhama Srinivasan born, Indian mathematician, known for her work in the representation theory of finite groups; she immigrated to the U.S. in the 1970s, and became a naturalized citizen in 1977. She was a member of the Institute for Advances Studies at Princeton until 1980, when she began her tenure at the University of Illinois as professor of mathematics at the Chicago Circle Campus. She has been a fellow of the American Mathematical Society since 2012, and a fellow of the Association for Women in Mathematics since 2017.
- April 22, 1942 – Mary Prior born, Lord Lieutenant of Bristol (2007-2017), and Chair of the Commission for Bristol and Avon Magistrates (2008?-2017).
- April 22, 1943 – Janet Evanovich born, American novelist, known for her Stephanie Plum series.
- April 22, 1943 – Louise Glück born, American poet, 1993 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for The Wild Iris, Library of Congress Special Bicentennial Consultant (2000-2002) and Poet Laureate (2003-2004), 2014 National Book Award (Poetry) for Faithful and Virtuous Night. In 2020, she won the Nobel Prize in Literature.
- April 22, 1946 – Louise Harel born, Quebec politician; City Councilor for Maisonneuve–Longue-Pointe (2009-2013); Interim Leader of the Parti Québécois (2005); first woman to be Speaker of the National Assembly (2002-2003); Member of the National Assembly for Hocelga-Maisonneuve (1989-2008); Member of the National Assembly for Maisonneuve (1981-1989).
- April 22, 1947 – Cathy Hughes born, African American entrepreneur and media pioneer: after being turned down for financing by over 30 banks when she applied for a loan to buy one radio station, she went on to become the co-founder and chair of Radio One, Inc (1979) now the largest radio broadcast network in the United States, with 69 stations in 22 cities. In 2004, she was behind the launch of TV One.
- April 22, 1950 – Jancis Robinson born, British journalist, internationally respected wine critic and weekly columnist for the Financial Times. She provides advice for the wine cellar of Queen Elizabeth II. Robinson began her career in wine writing as assistant editor of the trade magazine Wine & Spirit in 1975, and became a Master of Wine in 1984. She edited The Oxford Companion to Wine, considered one of the most comprehensive wine encyclopedias in the world.
- April 22, 1951 – Ana María Shua born, Argentine author and poet; noted for her novel Soy paciente (I’m patient), and her poetry collection, El sol y yo (The Sun and I), as well as several short story collections and children’s books.
- April 22, 1961 – Ann McKechin born, Scottish Labour politician; Member of Parliament for Glasgow North (2001-2015); Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (2008-2010); Committee on Scottish Affairs (2001-2005).
- April 22, 1963 – Rosalind Gill born, English sociologist, feminist cultural theorist and author; Professor of Social And Cultural Analysis at City, University of London since 2013; noted for her 2007 article framing “postfeminism” as a contemporary sensibility which includes: an obsessive preoccupation with the body; a shift from women being portrayed as submissive, passive objects, to being portrayed as active, desiring sexual subjects; the preeminence of notions of choice, ‘being oneself’ and ‘pleasing oneself’; a focus on self-surveillance and discipline; a makeover paradigm; the reassertion of sexual difference; and media messages that are characterized by irony and knowingness. Her research on British broadcasting documented new forms of racism and sexism, which she also found in media environments that explicitly marked themselves as ‘cool, creative and egalitarian.’ Gill developed the idea that in seemingly egalitarian workplaces inequality becomes “unspeakable” and perhaps even unintelligible, and challenged debates centered on maternity as the primary reason for women’s underrepresentation in cultural and creative fields, pointing to the need to explore the flexibility and dynamism of sexism as a set of practices.
- April 22, 2016 – A new report from the National Center for Health Statistics shows that the suicide rate among American Indian and Alaska Native women had increased by 89% from 1999 to 2014. The NCHS warns that the problem may be even worse than the statistics show, as they estimate that overall deaths for the American Indian and Alaska Native populations are unreported, perhaps by as much as 30%. The suicide rate for all groups of Americans increased by 24% between 1999 and 2014.
- April 22, 2020 – Abigail Disney, Emmy award-winning filmmaker and granddaughter of Roy Disney, blasted Disney Executives for protecting their bonuses and stockholder dividends while laying off over 100,000 workers to weather the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. She had already criticized the pay package for Executive Chair Bob Iger, and she said of the $1.5 billion in typical dividend payouts, “That’d pay for three months’ salary to frontline workers,” she said. “And it’s going to people who have already been collecting egregious bonuses for years. Dividends aren’t all bad, given the number of fixed-income folks who rely on them. But still 80% of shares are owned by the wealthiest 10%. Pay the people who make the magic happen with respect and dignity they have more than earned from you. This company must do better.” Though Disney executives had forgone part of their base salaries, Abigail Disney tweeted, “Salary is a drop in the bucket to these guys. The real payday is in the rest of the package,” adding, “I don’t have a role with the company ... But I am an heir. And I do carry this name with me everywhere. And I have a conscience which makes it very difficult for me to sit by when I see abuses taking place with that name attached to them.”
- April 22, 2021 – ** President Biden’s nomination of Chiquita Brooks-LaSure to head the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services suffered a setback when Senator John Cornyn (Republican-Texas) influenced all the Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee to vote against approving her nomination. Cornyn was angry because the CM&M had pulled back a 10-year extension of federal hospital funding for uncompensated care under Medicaid, the agency saying it did not think that extension had been properly handled and wanted to reevaluate it. Several Republicans believed this was a move by the Biden administration to pressure conservative states to move to expand Medicaid to provide health care for many uninsured residents. Since the Senate Finance Committee vote was tied, Senate Democratic leaders had to take special measures to get the nomination of Brooks-LaSure to the floor. In spite of the Republican obstruction, Chiquita Brooks-LaSure became the first African-American CM&M Administrator in May 2021.
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- April 23, 1858 – Pandita Ramabai Sarasvati born, Indian social reformer and pioneer in women’s emancipation and education. First woman accorded the titles of Pandita as a Sanskrit scholar and Sarasvati after being examined by the faculty of the University of Calcutta. Founder of the Arya Mahila Samaj (Arya Woman’s Society) to promote women’s education and to bring an end to child marriage. She gave evidence in 1882 before Lord Ripon’s Education Commission: “In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred the educated men of this country are opposed to female education and the proper position of women. If they observe the slightest fault, they magnify the grain of mustard-seed into a mountain, and try to ruin the character of a woman.” She suggested that women be trained as teachers and school inspectors, and further, that women be admitted to medical colleges, since Indian women could not be treated by male doctors. Her evidence caused a sensation, and was one of the inspirations of the Women’s Medical Movement started by Lord Dufferin. Ramabai went to Britain in 1883 to start medical training. During her stay she converted to Christianity. From Britain she traveled to the United States in 1886 to attend the graduation of the first female Indian doctor, Anandibai Joshi, staying for two years. During this time she also translated textbooks and gave lectures throughout the United States and Canada. She also published one of her most important books, The High-Caste Hindu Woman, the first book that she wrote in English.
- April 23, 1872 – Charlotte E. Ray graduated from Howard University School of Law, becoming the first African-American woman lawyer.
- April 23, 1872 – Violet Gordon-Woodhouse born, British pianist and harpsichordist, first to record and broadcast harpsichord music.
- April 23, 1895 – Dame Ngaio Marsh born, New Zealand author and director, known for mystery novels featuring detective Roderick Alleyn, one of the “Queens of Crime.”
- April 23, 1916 – Sinah Estelle Kelley born, African-American chemist who worked on the mass production of penicillin for the U.S. Department of Agriculture after WWII. Her name was listed with her colleagues as co-author on several scientific papers during this time, even though she did not hold an advanced degree. In 1958, she moved to New York, where she worked on the effects of strontium 90 at an Atomic Energy Commission Laboratory until her retirement in late 1970s.
- April 23, 1928 – Shirley Temple Black born, American child star and ingénue in many films (1932-1950); Republican appointee as U.S. Ambassador to Czechoslovakia (1989-1992); to Ghana (1974-1977) and was the first woman U.S. Chief of Protocol (1976-1977).
- April 23, 1933 – ** Annie Easley born, African-American computer scientist, mathematician, and engineer who worked for both the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) and NASA; a leading member of the team which developed software for the Centaur rocket stage, and one of the first African-American computer scientists to work for NASA.
- April 23, 1937 – Victoria Glendinning born, British biographer, critic, novelist, and broadcaster; winner of the 1981 James Tait Black Memorial Biography Prize for Edith Sitwell: Unicorn Among Lions.
- April 23, 1947 – Bernadette Devlin born, Irish civil rights leader and Irish Republican Socialist politician; Member of Parliament for Mid Ulster (1969-1974); she was one of the founders in 1997 of STEP (South Tyrone Empowerment Programme), and serves as its chief executive. STEP provides services and advocacy for community development, and community-based enterprise.
- April 23, 1950 – Barbara McIlvaine Smith born, enrolled member of the Sac and Fox Nation, and Democratic politician; Member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives from the 156th district (2007-2010); Member of the West Chester Borough Council from the 5th Ward (2002-2006).
- April 23, 1959 – Unity Dow born, Botswana judge, lawyer, human rights activist, writer, and government minister; Minister of International Affairs and Cooperation since 2018; Member of Parliament since 2014; Botswana’s first woman High Court judge; she is the author of five novels, including Saturday is for Funerals, describing the AIDS problem in Africa. Since 2005, she has been a member of the UN mission to Sierra Leone to review the application of international women’s human rights norms. In December 2006, she was one of three judges ruling on the Kgalagadi (San, Bushmen or Basarwa) court decision, concerning the rights of the San to return to their ancestral lands.
- April 23, 1965 – Leni Robredo born Filipina lawyer, social activist, and Liberal politician; elected in 2016 as Vice President of the Philippines (the President and Vice President are elected separately; she and President Rodrigo Duterte have frequent clashes, and he has banned her from Cabinet meetings); Chair of the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council (2016); Member of the Philippine House of Representatives from Camarines Sur’s 3rd District (2013-2016).
- April 23, 1984 – Alexandra Kosteniuk born, Russian chess grandmaster; Women’s World Chess Champion (2008-2010).
- April 23, 2017 – Kuki Gallmann, renowned conservationist, environmental activist, and author, is shot twice before rangers rescue her. An Italian who became a Kenyan citizen in the 1980s, she is known for her autobiography, I Dreamed of Africa. She founded Ol Ari Nyiro, “The Place of Dark Springs,” an 88,000-acre nature reserve. The culprits are believed to be Pokot pastoralists who have invaded private conservancies and ranches along the western fringe of Kenya’s Laikipia region, bringing with them tens of thousands of livestock, poaching wildlife, stealing cattle, and intimidating landowners and workers.
- April 23, 2018 – LeeAnne Walters, resident of Flint, Michigan, is awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize for her grassroots community organizing and tireless search for the truth. In 2014, she was a former medical assistant who was a stay-at-home mother of four children. She sounded an alarm when her children became ill, informing the city there was a problem with the water coming into Flint homes from the Flint River. When the city sent someone to check on her complaints, tests revealed that lead levels in her drinking water were at 104 parts per billion (ppb)—unprecedented levels for Flint, so high that a city is required to alert residents immediately, per federal law. But state authorities continued to assure residents that the water was safe. Walters researched lead exposure, and diligently studied the city’s historical water quality data. She noticed something that no one else had: water from the Flint River was highly corrosive, and surmised that the city hadn’t been applying adequate corrosion controls to prevent the leaching of lead from pipes into the water supply. In the absence of any official response, she launched a concerted organizing and canvassing operation to inform Flint residents of the risk. She got help unofficially from the EPA’s regional manager Miguel del Toral, and Virginia Tech environmental engineer Professor Marc Edwards did extensive tests on the 800 water samples she collected, covering every zip code in Flint. Some samples had lead levels as high as 13,200 ppb—more than twice the level which the EPA classifies as hazardous waste.
- April 23, 2020 – On Capitol Hill, House lawmakers voted overwhelmingly to approve another $484 billion in emergency relief. Most of the money would replenish the Paycheck Protection Program, set up to provide forgivable loans to small businesses. But New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez blasted Republicans for refusing to take up new assistance to hard-hit U.S. residents — like cash payments and food aid — in this relief bill. She also pointed to big businesses like corporate chain restaurants that have previously received tens of millions of dollars in loans meant for small businesses. Ocasio-Cortez declared: “You are not trying to fix this bill for mom-and-pops. And we have to fight to fund hospitals ... to fund testing. That is what we’re fighting for in this bill. It is unconscionable. If you had urgency, you would legislate like rent was due on May 1st and make sure that we include rent and mortgage relief for our constituents.”
- April 23, 2021 – Sondra Miller, CEO of the Cleveland Rape Crisis Center, reacted to #April24, a video on TikTok declaring April 24 as National Rape Day. The original video was taken down by TikTok, but Miller said, “I was horrified that something like this could be circulating.” Even though #April24 has been declared a hoax, she says it can still be triggering to rape survivors. “It also hurts when other people minimize the impact of rape or somehow suggest that it’s funny or something that we can laugh about,” Miller declared, and responded to that advice that women should stay home on April 24, “For decades, we have told women to stay home, to dress a certain way to protect themselves, and yet we have not stopped rape. The only way that we are going to prevent rape is to stop rapists before they behave that way.”
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Matriarchal African Elephants
When it comes to African elephants, a new mom is not alone in guiding her young. Elephants live in a matriarchal society, so other females in the social group help a calf to its feet after birth and show the baby how to nurse.
The older female elephants adjust the pace of the herd so the calf can keep up. By watching the adults, the calf learns which plants to eat and how to access them. The females regularly make affectionate contact with the calf.
Adult males are usually solitary, but may sometimes form small groups with other males.
Elephants can live up to age 70, but their population in Africa is declining. They have already disappeared in Sierra Leone and Senegal. Between 2010-2012 alone, poachers across Africa slaughtered an estimated 100,000 elephants for their ivory tusks.