Women in History

May

May 3: In 1879, Belva Lockwood becomes the first women to argue before the Supreme Court against gender apartheid.

May 5: In 1938, Dr. Dorothy H. Anderson identifies the disease cystic fibrosis.

May 12: Sharon S. Adams leaves on the first solo transpacific crossing by a woman from Yokohama, Japan in 1969.

May 15: In 1809, Mary Kies becomes first U.S. woman granted a patent for "a new and useful improvement in weaving straw with silk or thread".

May 17: Born 1937, Hazel O'Leary, U.S. Energy Secretary.

May 18: In 1953, aviator Jackie Cochran breaks the sound barrier.

May 21: Born in 1867, ethnomusicologist Frances Densmore who recorded songs of Native Americans.

May 23: Intellectual extraordinaire of the 19th century, Margaret Fuller, is born.

May 24: Born 1898, Helen Taussig, the physician who diagnosed the cause of "blue babies".

May 25: Mme. C.J. Walker died. She was the first self-made female millionaire in the U.S.

May 26:  Born in 1951, physicist and first U.S. woman in space, Sally Ride.

May 30: In 1848, astronomer Maria Mitchell becomes the first woman elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

May 31: Born in 1854, Mary Hannah Fulton is the founder of the Hackett Medical College for Women in Canton, China.

From: Women Who Dare(Library of Congress)