Welcome to Infinite Women

This Day In History

Activism

1891 The 'monster bill' presented to Australia's Victorian Parliament. In 1891 women throughout Victoria went door to door, gathering signatures for a women’s suffrage petition, which became known as the ‘monster petition’. The petition was approximately 260 metres long and contained nearly 30,000 signatures.

Journalism

2005 New York Times reporter Judith Miller is released from a federal detention center in Alexandria, Virginia, after agreeing to testify in the investigation into the leaking of the identity of covert CIA officer Valerie Plame. Miller had been behind bars since July 6, 2005, for refusing to reveal a confidential source and testify before a grand jury that was looking into the so-called Plame Affair. She decided to testify after the source she had been protecting, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, signed a waiver giving her permission to speak.

Sports

1918 Marie-Louise Ledru was a French athlete who has been credited as the first woman to race the now-defined marathon distance of 42.195 km. On 29 September 1918 Ledru completed the Tour de Paris Marathon in a time of 5 hours and 40 minutes and finished in 38th place.

1988 Stacy Allison of Portland, Oregon, becomes the first American woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest, which at 29,035 feet above sea level is the highest point on earth. Allison, a member of the Northwest American Everest Expedition, climbed the Himalayan peak using the southeast ridge route.