Welcome to Infinite Women

This Day In History

Law

1965 The Voting Rights Act outlaws the discriminatory literacy tests that had been used to prevent African Americans from voting. Suffrage is finally fully extended to African American women.

2009 Sonia Sotomayor was confirmed as the United States' first Hispanic Supreme Court justice by a Senate vote of 68-31.

Military

1825 Bolivia gains independence from Spain, thanks in large part to the military leadership of people like Juana Azurduy de Padilla. The country's namesake, Simón Bolívar commented of Azurduy and her husband, "This country should not be named Bolivia in my honor, but Padilla or Azurduy, because it was them who made it free."

Politics

1942 Queen Wilhemina of the Netherlands became the first reigning queen to address a joint meeting of the US Congress, telling lawmakers that despite Nazi occupation, her people’s motto remained, “No surrender.”

1991 Takako Doi, chair of the Social Democratic Party, becomes Japan's first female speaker of the House of Representatives.

Sports

1926 Gertrude Ederle of New York City becomes the first woman to swim the English Channel, covering the 35 miles (56 km) in 14 hr 31 min, beating the men’s world record by 1 hr 59 min.

Writing

1848 Susie King Taylor was born a slave on a plantation in Georgia, U.S. She would become a teacher, a nurse, and the only African American woman to write a Civil War memoir, thanks in part to her grandmother, who arranged for Susie to learn to read and write, even though it was illegal.