Almanac

October 29 - November 4

Birthdays

October 29

• In 1891, Fanny Brice singing comedienne (Zeigfield Follies, Baby Snooks). Her life was the basis for the hit movies Funny Girl and Funny Lady, starring Barbra Streisand.

November 2

• In 1755, Marie Antoinette, contrary to popular stories, a
  decisive and able politician. Her mother and mentor was the master politician Maria Theresa who is arguably one of the three greatest women rulers in western civilization along with Elizabeth I and Catherine the Great.
  
• In 1936, Rose Elizabeth Bird, Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court 1977/87. She was a judge in Tuscon, Arizona, and California Secretary of Agriculture (1975).
  In 1942, Shere Hite, author and researcher. Her best known
  work is The Hite Report, one of the pioneer works on the realities of women's sexuality not censored by men's views
  

November 3

• In 1876, Mary Augusta Leavitt, physician, early authority on anaesthesia.

November 4

• In 1912, Pauline Trigere, fashion designer, produced the first reversible coat.
  

Happenings

October 29

• In 1966, the National Organization of Women was founded at the third annual conference of Commissions on the Status of Women Twenty-eight women contributed $5 each to help fund its organization. The founding conference elected Betty Friedan as President, Kay Clarenbach chair of the board, Aileen Hernandez executive vice-president, Richard
  Graham vice president, and Caroline Davis, sec-treasurer. NOW's purpose was(is) to "bring women into full participation in the mainstream of American society NOW!"
  
• In 1974, President Gerald Ford signed a law that forbids
  credit discrimination on the basis of sex. In November of that year, the Federal Home Loan Bank Board announced an end to discrimination in mortgage lending. (A 1995 backlash found many mortgage lenders reverting by insisting on spousal credit/income.)
  
• In 1988, 2,000 US anti-abortion protesters were arrested for blocking clinics.
  

October 30

• In 1838, Oberlin Collegiate Institute in Lorian County, Ohio became the first college in the US to admit female students.
  

October 31

• In 1984, Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated in New Delhi by two Sikh members of her bodyguard.
  

• In 1914, Nevada's men vote in women's suffrage six
  years before the national franchise was ratified, thanks in great part to Anne Henrietta Martin, who headed the history
  department at the University of Nevada.
  
• In 1970, Gertrude W. Donahey was elected state treasurer,
  and so became the first woman to hold an elected state office in Ohio.
  
• In 1977, by an act of the US Congress, women who
  trained airmen in World War II and transported planes to England (unarmed) -- the Women's Air Force Service Pilots (WASPS) -- were finally granted veteran's benefits after seeking them in vain for 34 years.
  
• In 1990, Gro Harlem Brundtland became Prime
  Minister of Norway for the third time and appointed nine women in her 19-person cabinet.
  

• In 1924, Nellie Tayloe Ross was elected the first US female governor (Wyoming). Fifteen days later, Miriam Ferguson was elected the governor of Texas.
  
• In 1965, Lee Breedlove set the female land speed record (308.56 MPH).
  
• In 1968, Shirley Chisholm became the first black woman
  elected to the House of Representatives.
  
• In 1986, in San Francisco, California, voters approved pay
  equity for city female/male workers.
  
• In 1992, the Ecclesiastical Court of the Presbyterian
  Church (USA) prevented a Rochester, New York, church from hiring an openly lesbian, sexually active minister, the Rev. Jane Adams, as its co-pastor. The Rev. Adams had been ordained in 1973 before the Presbyterian General Assembly voted to halt ordination of gays and lesbians.
  
  
  
  
  

For more information, check out Women of Achievement and Herstory.