#OnThisDay, 3 Apr 1979, Jane Byrne wins the Chicago mayoral election. She is the first woman to be mayor of the city and is sworn in on 16 April. She hires the first black woman to be a school superintendent in the city, and stops the police raiding gay bars.
Lori Lightfoot was the second woman to hold the post, from 2019 to 2023. She’s the first black woman and the first LGBT+ mayor since the post was created in 1837.
#OnThisDay, 3 Apr 1913, suffragette leader Emmeline Pankhurst is sentenced to three years' penal servitude, and announces she will go on hunger strike.
April 2, 1863 - In Richmond, hundreds of women were involved in a riot to demand that the rebel government release emergency supplies.
#WomensHistory https://www.kentstateuniversitypress.com/2017/a-family-and-nation-under-fire/
#OnThisDay, 2 Apr 1917, Jeanette Rankin is sworn in, becoming the first woman to sit in the US Congress.
#OnThisDay, 1 April 1983, around 200 women dressed as teddy bears or Easter bunnies break into the Greenham Common airbase in the UK to stage a protest picnic against nuclear warfare. Greenham was due to house US nuclear missiles
A further 40,000 protestors, men and women, form a human chain linking #Greenham to #Aldermaston and Burghfield.
Women had established the peace camps at Greenham in 1981.
#OnThisDay, 1 Apr 1792, former spy Etta Palm-Aelders speaks to the revolutionary French parliament.
Her demands?
The right for women to be admitted to civilian and military positions.
The education of girls to be based on the same principles as those of boys.
That women could become adults at the age of 21, and could get divorced.
Her demands were refused.
Did you get the sense that Women's History Month was a bit of a damp squib this year, with fewer people writing about and discussing the annual observance, which started in 1987? @19thnews discusses why that might have been the case: Trump's anti-DEI moves have killed or maimed some efforts to celebrate women's achievements, from an Ohio conference to Defense Department web pages.
https://flip.it/.HKAIr
#WomensHistoryMonth #WomensHistory #DEI #History @histodons #DiversityEquityInclusion #TrumpAdministration
Before the Nobel Prize, there was a young Grazia Deledda, a woman with a fire in her soul and a pen in her hand. A new film directed by Maria Grazia Perria now brings her early years to life, revealing the roots of her groundbreaking work.
#graziadeledda #cinema #movies #loveandglory #mustwatch #sardinia #italy #literature #womensrights #womenshistory #womenpower #womeninfilm
#OnThisDay, 31 Mar 1988, Toni Morrison's 'Beloved' wins the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. She was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993.
“Remember all Men would be tyrants if they could. If particular care and attention is not paid to the Ladies we are determined to foment a Rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any Laws in which we have no voice, or Representation."
#OnThisDay, 31 Mar 1776, Abigail Adams wrote to her husband, John Adams, who was drafting the Declaration of Independence. He declined her suggestions.
#OnThisDay, 30 Mar 1982, Bertha Wilson was sworn in to the Canadian Supreme Court. She is the first woman appointed to sit on it.
When she had started at law school in 1955, she was reportedly advised to 'take up crocheting' instead.
Her 1988 ruling decriminalised abortion in Canada.
#OnThisDay, 29 Mar 1993, Catherine Callbeck is elected as the premier of Prince Edward Island, Canada, in the general election. She is the first woman to be elected by the public to a premiership in Canada.
Other women had previously held premierships through party leadership elections.
10 Trailblazing Chicago Women You Should Know.
Kitihawa, Bessie Coleman, Alta Hulett and other women have paved their own way — and made history — while calling Chicago home.
https://blockclubchicago.org/2025/03/28/10-trailblazing-chicago-women-you-should-know/ #Women #WomensHistory #History #Illinois Chicago #Diversity #Equality #Trailblazers
Women have been playing baseball in the U.S. for 150 years, with the first professional team, the Dolly Vardens, being formed in 1867. @TheConversationUS takes a look at how girls were gradually funnelled towards softball — seen as more suitable for the “weaker” female body — and why a new era in women’s baseball may be about to begin.
https://theconversation.com/women-are-reclaiming-their-place-in-baseball-252590
The Massachusetts State House has one of the oldest public art collections in the country with more than 300 works — of which only 20 depict women. Here’s @gbhnews’s story on how Senate President Karen Spilka is trying to change that.
Woman was not wanting in courage in the early ages. In war and bloodshed this trait was often displayed. Grecian and Roman history have lauded and honored her in this character. English history records her courageous women too, for unhappily we have little but the records of war handed down to us.
Lucretia Mott
For women’s history month, we continue to celebrate our incredible leaders whose work has immeasurably bettered our communities and our country.
Thank you Rep. Lateefah Simon (CA-12) for your meaningful work!
#OnThisDay, 28 Mar 1900, Queen Yaa Asantewa leads an army of 5,000 to fight colonial Britain's attempts to rule the Asante region.
Read more: https://carvehername.org.uk/yaa-asantewaa/
