Women in History

History texts and classes are often dominated by male figures, yet women have played and continue to play a major role in the world's economy, politics, culture and discoveries and deserve their fair share of recognition as well. March is Women's History Month and there's no better time to celebrate their contributions. Here are some fascinating facts about women's history that will showcase some standouts, accomplishments, impacts and just how far they have come.

Sports .

8. No women or girls were allowed at the first Olympics, but the Games of Hera, featuring footraces for women, were held every four years. In fact, women were not even allowed to watch the Olympic games or encouraged to participate in athletics (with the exception of the Spartans) so that the games existed at all is surprising. At their inception, the games only included that one event.
9. At the first Winter Olympic Games in 1924, the only event open to women was figure skating.Only 15 women participated in these games, something that would change drastically over the decades.
10. Women were not allowed to compete in track and field events at the Olympics until 1928. The ancient Greeks and Romans may have let women run in footraces in the Heraen Games, but when it came to the Olympics, both ancient and modern, these events were off limits to women until 1928. Unfortunately, some of the events were too much for the untrained female athletes, and because many collapsed after the end of the 800-meter race, it was banned until 1960.
11. Roberta Gibb was the first woman to run and finish the Boston Marathon in 1966. Of course, she didn't get official credit for it, as women were not allowed to enter the race until 1972, but her wins, in '66, '67, and '68 seriously challenged long-held beliefs about the athletic prowess of women.
12. Virne "Jackie" Mitchell, a pitcher, was the first woman in professional baseball. While women still don't have much of a presence in baseball today, Mitchell proved that it wasn't because they couldn't play. During an exhibition game, she struck out both Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig. Her performance probably played a part in baseball commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis banning women from the sport later that year.
13. Mary, Queen of Scots is reported to be the first woman to play golf in Scotland. Golf today is still seen as a man's sport, but this powerful and scandalous queen couldn't have cared less. In fact, she even went out to play golf a few days after her husband Lord Darnley's murder.
14. Donald Walker's book, Exercise for Ladies, warns women against horseback riding, because it deforms the lower part of the body. While this book was published in 1837, the views it documented about women doing any kind of exertion or exercise were to hold throughout the Victorian era and beyond.

Culture

15. The world's first novel, The Tale of Genji, was published in Japan around A.D. 1000 by female author Murasaki Shikibu. It is still revered today for its masterful observations about court life and has been translated into dozens of languages.
16. In 1921, American novelist Edith Wharton was the first woman to receive a Pulitzer Prize for fiction. She won the award for her novel The Age of Innocence, a story set in upper-class New York during the 1870s.
17. Women often wrote under pen names in times when it was not seen as appropriate for them to contribute to literature. Even some female authors who are highly acclaimed today had to resort to fake names like Jane Austen, the Bronte Sisters, Mary Ann Evans (perhaps better known by her pen name George Eliot), and Louisa May Alcott.
18. In the early years of the blues, from 1910 to 1925, the vast majority of singers were women. It might go against the common idea of just what the blues are or what they should sound like, but new research has found that some of the biggest players in the form of music were actually women.
19. In an era when female painters had to struggle for acceptance, Artemesia Gentileschi was the first female to be accepted by the Accademia di Arte del Disegno in Florence. A follower of the style popularized by Caravaggio, her work is often particularly adept at bringing to life the passion and suffering of mythological and biblical women.

       

Amazing Women

20. Marie Curie is the only woman to ever win two Nobel Prizes. Her first award was for physics for her work on spontaneous radiation with her husband, with her second being in Chemistry for her studies of radioactivity.
21. Hatshepsut was one of the most powerful women in the ancient world and the one and only female pharaoh in recorded history. She was the fifth pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty of Ancient Egypt after taking over as a supposed regent for her son and reigned for over twenty years. While accounts seem to paint her reign as a favorable one, her images have been defaced on temples and inscriptions as though they meant to wipe her existence from history.
22. Queen Victoria ruled one of the largest empires in the history of the world, at one point controlling land on nearly every continent.This included countries like including India, Australia, Egypt, Kenya, Canada, and British Guiana promoting the saying that the sun never sets on the British empire.
23. Martha Wright Griffiths, an American lawyer and judge, pushed through the Sex Discrimination Act in 1964 as part of the Civil Rights Act. This act has helped protect countless women on the job and in everyday life from discrimination based on their gender.
24. Journalist Nellie Bly put Jules Verne's character Phileas Fogg to shame when she completed an around the world journey in only seventy two days– quite a feat before the invention of the airplane. Bly is also well-known for her expose on mental institutions, a project for which she had to fake psychological illness to gain access to the facilities.
25. Jane Addams was the first woman to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Because of her work with the Hull House, the public philosopher, writer, leader and suffragist went down as one of the most influential and prolific women in American history.
26. Upon her husband's death, Cherokee leader Nancy Ward took his place in a 1775 battle against the Creeks, and led the Cherokee to victory. After the victory, she became head of the Woman's Council and a member of the Council of Chiefs, playing a key role in social and political changes to the Cherokee nation throughout her life.
27. In 1777, sixteen-year-old Sybil Ludington raced through the night to warn New York patriots that the British were attacking nearby Danbury, CT, where munitions and supplies for the entire region were stored during the heat of the Revolutionary War. While Paul Revere gets all the glory for nighttime rides, her journey took her twice the distance and helped the troops prepare and repel a British attack.
28. Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony spent their lives fighting for women's suffrage, but neither lived long enough to see the Amendment granting them the right to vote. Stanton passed away in 1902, decades before women finally won out, and Anthony in 1906 only a few years later.
29. African-American performer Josephine Baker was working in France during WWII, but not only as a singer, dancer and actress. She was also helping the war movement, smuggling numerous messages to French soldiers. She often hid messages inside her dress or concealed with invisible ink on her sheet music. Baker's work in the war is only part of what makes her such an amazing figure, as she was the first African American female to star in a major motion picture, perform in a concert hall and played a big role in the Civil Rights Movement.