This Day In History
- Politics
- 1921 The first Swedish general elections held under universal suffrage concluded. The first women were elected to Swedish Parliament after the suffrage were Kerstin Hesselgren in the Upper chamber and Nelly Thüring, Agda Östlund, Elisabeth Tamm and Bertha Wellin in the Lower chamber. It was not until 1961, that women held more than 10% seats in parliament.
- 1971 Rep. Shirley Chisholm, the first Black woman elected to the United States Congress, announces she will enter the Democratic presidential primaries. She became the first African-American candidate for a major party's nomination for President of the United States, and the first woman to run for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination.
- Religion
- 1973 Capt. Lorraine Potter, an American Baptist minister, becomes the first woman U.S. Air Force chaplain.
- Science
- 1991 Four men and four women (Jane Poynter, Sally Silverstone, Abigail Alling and Linda Leigh) began a two-year stay inside a sealed-off structure in Oracle, Arizona, called Biosphere 2. They emerged from Biosphere on this date in 1993. It remains the largest closed ecological system ever created.
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Women have influenced every aspect of humanity, but history is full of their contributions being undermined, stolen or hidden because of their gender. Infinite Women aims to help bring these stories into the light, to acknowledge and share the value of women’s work, now and throughout human history.
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