#OnThisDay, 19 Mar 2008, Dr Fehmida Mirza was elected as Speaker of the National Assembly in Pakistan. She held the role until 2013. She was the first woman to hold the role, and remains the only woman to have done it so far.

#OnThisDay, 19 March 1944, Yvonne Baseden parachutes into Nazi-occupied France as a Special Operations Executive radio operator. The British SOE supported the French resistance. Radio operators ran the greatest risk of discovery as their position could be triangulated when they were transmitting.

Baseden was captured and sent to Ravensbrück.

She was the subject of the first regular UK edition of This Is Your Life in 1955.

Happy Minna Canth day, Finland!

Born #OnThisDay, 19 Mar 1844, Minna Canth was a Finnish playwright and social activist. Public buildings will fly the national flag to celebrate.

#OnThisDay, 18 Mar 2012, Berta Soler and dozens of other 'Ladies in White' activists are arrested for demanding the release of political prisoners in Cuba.

#OnThisDay, 18 Mar 1979, the first National Black Women’s Conference started in Brixton, London, arranged by the Organisation of Women of African and Asian Descent (OWAAD). Over 300 women attended.

OWAAD was founded by Stella Dadzie and Olive Morris in 1978 to bring a black feminist perspective to political action.

Morris died in July 1979 of non-Hodgkin lymphoma. In 2024, she was recognised for her work with a blue plaque.

Today in 1865, 160 years ago: American Civil War: The Congress of the Confederate States adjourns for the last time.

“Once, with hand-grenades in my shopping bag, I travelled in a train so full that I had to stand against a German NCO.”

#OnThisDay, 18 Mar 1943, Francine Agazarian arrives in Nazi-occupied France to be a courier in the Special Operations Executive. The British SOE supported the French Resistance.

Today in 1776, 249 years ago: American Revolution: The British Army evacuates Boston, ending the Siege of Boston, after George Washington and Henry Knox place artillery in positions overlooking the city.

#OnThisDay, 17 Mar 1964, Joan Merriam Smith set off from Oakland airport in California in an attempt to fly solo around the world. She followed Amelia Earhart’s easterly route from 1937 as far as New Guinea where Earhart had vanished.

Merriam Smith arrived back in Oakland on 12 May 1964, the first pilot to successfully make a solo circumnavigation by the equatorial route.

#WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #WomenPilots #AmericanHistory #WomensHistoryMonth

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On this day in 1992, a national referendum to end apartheid in #SouthAfrica is passed 68.7% to 31.2%.

And because #apartheid had not yet been ended, only white people got to vote in that referendum, if I remember correctly?

Fifty-six years ago today, on 17 March 1969, the lifeboat from Longhope in Orkney capsized with the loss of all eight crew. This is the Longhope Lifeboat Museum on Hoy, which tells the story of Longhope's lifeboats. More pics and info: https://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/hoy/lifeboatmuseum/index.html

#OnThisDay, March 16, in 1945, America began a two-day campaign of firebombing Kobe, Japan (depicted in Grave of the Fireflies, 1988, Studio Ghibli)

Happy 9th anniversary to the first Mastodon post!

Via https://stefanbohacek.online/@stefan/110985808809440467

#OnThisDay, 16 Mar 1876, Rose Harland and Nelly Saunders step into the ring at Harry Hill's bar for the first all-woman boxing match in the USA.

No illustration of Rose and Nelly, so here's a poster for the bar.

#WomenInHistory #WomensHistoryMonth #History #ThisGirlCan #AmericanHistory #Histodons
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Today in 1820, 205 years ago: Maine is admitted as the twenty-third U.S. state.

#OnThisDay, 15 Mar 1927, the inaugural women's boat race between Oxford and Cambridge takes place on the Isis.

In 2015, the women’s race was finally held on the same day, and over the same course, as the men’s race.

Watch silent newsreel of the 1927 race here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5J6kqhJGOWI

More: http://the-history-girls.blogspot.com/2015/03/women-making-waves-newton-womens-oxford.html

On this date in 1781, William and Caroline Herschel discovered a new “comet”, which turned out to be the planet now known as Uranus. It was the first new planet to be discovered since ancient times. And William Herschel wanted to call it Georgium Sidius (George’s Star) after his patron King George III of England. The things scientists contemplate to get funding…

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranus

Today in 1972, 53 years ago: the film The Godfather opens in New York (United States).

#OnThisDay, 14 Mar 2018, Angela Merkel is sworn in as Chancellor of Germany for the fourth time. #WomenInPolitics

Today in 1948, 77 years ago: In Washington (United States) the Senate approves the Marshall Plan.