Women of the week Archives

27 September 202227 January 2025

Sixty years of Silent Spring

Rachel Carson standing in front of a bookcase in 1962. Overlaid is the cover of her book Silent Spring

Olga Owens Huckins watched the birds falling lifeless all around her property in Massachusetts in January 1958. It was just after the area had been sprayed with DDT from a plane. She wrote to the Boston Herald and sent a copy of her letter to her friend Rachel Carson. Carson was a marine biologist and a best-selling nature writer who was already very concerned about the use of man-made chemicals, especially pesticides, on the natural world.

Carson already had three best-selling non-fiction books: Under the Sea Wind, The Sea Around Us and The Edge of the Sea. She added her friend’s letter to the evidence she was building for her next book.

24 June 201927 January 2025

Elena Piscopia receives her doctorate: 25 June 1678

cropped portrait of Elena Piscopia seated with a book in her hand

On 25 June 1678, Elena Lucrezia Cornaro Piscopia is cross-examined in the Cathedral of the Blessed Virgin in Padua. Crowds of nobles, scholars and city officials are watching. Her answers on two Aristotelian theses impress her examiners and she is awarded the Doctorate of Philosophy degree. She is one of the first women to receive a doctorate in the world.

17 June 201927 January 2025

Khan, Rowden and Lefort set out for France: 17 June 1943

On 17 June 1943 Noor-un-nisa Inayat Khan, Diana Rowden and Cecily Lefort left for France in a small plane. All three women were trained Special Operations Executive agents setting off on their separate missions for the British against the German occupiers. None of them returned.

10 June 201927 January 2025

Valentina Tereshkova reaches orbit: 16 June 1963

Valentina Tereshkova in her spacesuit, preparing for launch

On 16 June 1963, Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman in space, orbiting the Earth 48 times in Vostok 6. With her flight, she clocked up more hours in space than all the preceding American manned missions combined. She remained the only woman to have flown in space for 19 years and she remains the only woman to have completed a solo space mission.

3 June 201927 January 2025

Ada Lovelace meets Charles Babbage: 5 June 1833

On 5 June 1833, Ada Bryon attended a party at mathematician Charles Babbage’s house. She’d been presented at court a few days earlier so it was simply part of the London season. Except Babbage invited Ada to see his prototype Difference Engine. It was the start of an intellectual friendship that resulted in Ada becoming the first theoretical computer programmer.

We know machines run algorithms now, delivering customised playlists or sorting job applications. Ada was the first person to perceive the numbers to be used in calculations could also act as symbols for other systems.

20 May 201927 January 2025

Finland’s 19 female MPs take their seats: 23 May 1907

13 of the 19 Finnish female MPs in a posed group photo

On 23 May 1907 nineteen women took their seats as the Finnish Parliament met for the first time. The women were the first female Parliamentarians in the world.

By 2018 Finland ranked fourth in the world for gender parity. At the 2019 elections, 47% of the MPs elected were women.

13 May 201927 January 2025

Alison Hargreaves summits Everest: 13 May 1995

On 13 May 1995, professional British mountaineer Alison Hargreaves reached the summit of mount Everest in the Himalayas. She was the first woman – and only the second person – to summit without either support from a Sherpa team or supplementary oxygen.

Hargreaves had set her ambition out clearly and shown she was going for it: she would become the first woman to climb Everest, K2 and Kanchenjunga – the three highest mountains in the world – without oxygen.

7 May 201927 January 2025

Jeanne d’Arc in battle in Orleans: 7 May 1429

1903 painting of Jeanne d'Arc. She is in armour in front of a cathedral and surrounded by white flowers

On 7 May 1429, Jeanne d’Arc led several charges on the besieged city of Orleans in France. She was struck by an arrow, dressed the wound and returned to the fray. The next day, the English army besieging Orleans retreated and the city was freed.

Having led the lifting the of the siege, Jeanne then led the French army as they routed the English armies and freed more cities. When Charles VII of France was crowned in Reims that summer, Jeanne d’Arc knelt at his feet.

29 April 201927 January 2025

Philippine women vote to get the vote: 30 April 1937

Cartoon of President Quezon calling for women to vote in favour of suffrage

On 30 April 1937 almost 450,000 women in the Philippines voted for women to have the vote. With 9 out of 10 votes in favour, equal suffrage became part of the law. The plebiscite in April 1937 was the culmination of decades of activism.

22 April 201927 January 2025

Violeta Chamorro sworn in: 25 April 1990

Violete stands with arms aloft whilst wearing the presidential sash. Danial Ortega stands next to her

On 25 April 1990, Violeta Chamorro was sworn in as President of Nicaragua. She was the first female President in the Americas to have come to power under a free election.

Chamorro led the country for seven years, overseeing the end of the civil war between the Sandinistas (Marxist revolutionary government forces) and the Contras (US-backed counter-revolutionary forces).