Very early #OnThisDay, 23 Sept 1943, Pearl Witherington parachutes into Nazi-occupied France as a Special Operations Executive courier. #WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #EuropeanHistory #WorldWar2 🗃️ 1/2

#OnThisDay, 23 Sept 1913, women in South Africa 's Orange Free State protest the pass laws that forced women of colour to carry papers in order to travel for work. #WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #AfricanHistory 🗃️ 1/2

Buy ANY book before 24 September, and you could win a £250 Bookshop.org digital gift card! Every sale supports independent bookshops (and us!). Browse our shop* here: uk.bookshop.org/shop... 1/3

Hello! Yes, we're back. Yes, we're all good. Where have we been? Doing some paid work (not on women's history). Universal Basic Income when?

#OnThisDay, 22 Sept 1656, a jury of women in Maryland investigate and judge Judith Catchpole who is accused of witchcraft and infanticide. They find her not guilty. It's one of the first all-women juries in what becomes the USA. #WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #AmericanHistory 🗃️

#OnThisDay, 29 Aug 1930, the last 36 St Kildan islanders left for the Scottish mainland. Williamina Barclay, the island's nurse, had raised their request to leave. She then oversaw the evacuation as the government's representative on the island. #WomenInHistory #OTD #History #ScottishHistory 🗃️

#OnThisDay, 28 Aug 1917, ten of the Silent Sentinels are arrested outside the US White House. The sentinels were campaigning for women's suffrage, and picketed the White House for two and a half years. #WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #AmericanHistory #VotesForWomen 🗃️ 1/3

#OnThisDay, 26 Aug 1970, the Women's Strike for Equality marches through New York City, USA. Estimates vary on numbers, with between10 and 20 thousand people taking part in a call for peace and equality. #WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #AmericanHistory 🗃️

#OnThisDay, 25 Aug 1932, Amelia Earhart successfully lands in Newark, New Jersey, to become the first woman to fly solo across the USA. #WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #AmericanHistory #WomenPilots 🗃️ 1/2

#OnThisDay, 25 Aug 1804, Alicia Meynell (aka Alicia Thornton) races at York races in England. Side-saddle. She is now recognised as the first woman racing jockey. #WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #SportsHistory 🗃️

#OnThisDay, 24 Aug 1950, Edith Sampson becomes the first Black American delegate to the United Nations. Sampson had been a social worker before becoming a lawyer. She went on to be the first Black woman to be elected as a judge in Illinois. #WomenInHistory #OTD #History #AmericanHistory 🗃️

#OnThisDay, 24 Aug 1896, an unknown woman cyclist has a beer at the bar in New Jersey - making headlines in the New York Times. Chapeau! #WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #Cycling #AmericanHistory 🗃️

Steve Shirley escaped the Holocaust as a child & went on to found one of the earliest software startups. The really impressive part? She employed women programmers who had been pushed out of the workforce after having kids, & allowed them flexible, family friendly, work from home jobs—in the 1960s!

To explain this photo a bit more: back then, most programming was done on paper (sometimes on special coding sheets), then punched onto cards/tape, then fed into a mainframe to be tested (& if necessary debugged). Counterintuitively, needing LESS computer time was the mark of a better programmer!

🧵 #OnThisDay, 23 Aug 1941, American Virginia Hall arrives in France to work for the British Special Operations Executive. Hall ended up on the German's “most wanted” list as 'the limping lady'. #WomenInHistory #WorldWar2 #AmericanHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory 🗃️ 1/10

#OnThisDay, 22 Aug 1943, Yvonne Cormeau parachutes into France to be a radio operator for the British Special Operations Executive. The SOE supported the French Resistance to Nazi occupation. #WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #WorldWar2 #EuropeanHistory 🗃️ 1/2

#OnThisDay, 22 Aug 1762, Ann Smith Franklin becomes the sole editor of the weekly Rhode Island Mercury: the first woman to be a US newspaper editor. #WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #AmericanHistory 🗃️

#OtD 18 Aug 1812 women-led food riots broke out in Leeds and Sheffield, UK. A Leeds newspaper described the women seizing corn and wheat as being "dignified with the title of Lady Ludd". In Sheffield, flour dealers were forced to reduce their prices stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/8955...

#OnThisDay, 17 Aug 2012, Maria Alyokhina, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, and Yekaterina Samutsevich of Pussy Riot are sentenced to two years in a prison colony for an anti-Putin protest.

Very exciting: the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography published a cluster of new entries on women stationers. See the intro by Valerie Wayne: www.oxforddnb.com/newsitem/906... ODNB entries are so helpful in identifying women from traces on printed material. So happy to see this work ❤️

#OtD 16 Aug 1935 the mostly women workers at the Strutwear Knitting Co. in Minneapolis walked out on strike for pay increases, union recognition and the reinstatement of eight sacked union activists. They held out for eight months until they won stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/8761...

#OtD 16 Aug 1972 women cleaners at the Ministry of Defence in London won a five-month struggle for a payrise and union recognition. The "Night Cleaners Campaign" was supported by the women's movement as well as other workers stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/8764...

#OnThisDay, 16 Aug 2002, the Women's Peace Train left Kampala on a 10 day journey to Johannesburg.

#OnThisDay, 15 Aug 1970, Pat Palinkas became the first woman to play American football professionally. #WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #AmericanHistory

New podcast! Both parts of our double episode on women in the UK miners' strike of 1984-5 is out now for everyone. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, like Spotify or Apple podcasts, or go to our website: open.spotify.com/show/3dqQUrB... or workingclasshistory.com/podcast/e108...

#OtD 14 Aug 1886 50 women and girls working in the L Candee Rubber Boot Company factory in New Haven, Connecticut, walked out on strike over excessive working temperatures. Management had refused to open the windows "for fear of damage to the stock" stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/7748...

Very early #OnThisDay, 14 Aug 1943, Eliane Plewman parachutes into Nazi-occupied France to become a courier for the Special Operations Executive. #WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #WorldWar2 🗃️ 1/2

#OnThisDay, 14 Aug 1922, Lizzie 'Spike' Murphy became the first woman to play major league baseball in the US. #WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #AmericanHistory 🗃️

#OnThisDay, 13 Aug 2014, Iranian mathematician Maryam Mirzakhani won the Fields Medal for her work on complex geometry. She was the first woman to win it since it began in 1936. She died in 2017, aged just 40. Multiple awards and initiatives are named after her. #WomenInSTEM

#OnThisDay, 13 Aug 1918, Opha May Johnson became the first woman to enlist in the US Marines. She went on to be promoted to sergeant, and was the highest ranking woman in the Marines in WW1. #WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory 🗃️

Theodora Rasche aerobatic pilot. Pilot's license 1925, became 1st #German woman to pass aerobatic exam, 1932 1st woman in Germany awarded seaplane license. Flew in international competitions. 1933 editor of Flug-Illustrierten magazine & journalist b. #OTD 12 Aug 1899 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thea_Ra...

#OnThisDay, 12 Aug 1990, American Sue Hendrickson finds the remains of a T Rex, the largest specimen found to date, in South Dakota. The fossil remains are now known as Sue and are on display in Chicago. #WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory 🗃️

The women of Greenham Common even chucked paint over 'Blackbird', a US spyplane. The MOD withdrew the charges when the criminal damage case got to trial.

#OnThisDay, 11 Aug 1942 Hedy Lamarr and George Antheil receive a patent for their radio guidance system – the tech that now underpins wifi. Learn more about Hedy's remarkable life here: www.youmustremembert...#OnThisDay, #WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #WomenInSTEM #HollywoodHistory

The faculty have been waiting decades to get this quote into the Times.

#OnThisDay, 10 Aug 2013, British rider Lara Prior-Palmer wins the modern Mongol Derby four years after it is first run. She's the first woman to win the race. The 1,000 km course recreates Genghis Khan’s postal system of 25 horse stations across the Mongolian steppe.

#OnThisDay, 10 Aug 1993, Ruth Bader Ginsburg is sworn in as an Associate Justice on the US Supreme Court. #WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #AmericanHistory 🗃️

#OnThisDay, 9 Aug 1956, more than 20,000 women of all races march through Pretoria, South Africa, to petition against the law forcing women to carry passes in order to move about. #WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #AfricanHistory 1/2

#OnThisDay, 8 Aug 1995, Farida Sultana and seven other women agree to establish a culturally specialist support service for Asian, Middle Eastern and African women in violent and abusive situations in Aotearoa New Zealand. #NZHistory 🗃️ 1/2

#OnThisDay, 7 Aug 1948, American high jumper Alice Coachman wins Olympic gold, the first Black woman to win a gold medal. #WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #OlympicWomen 🗃️ 1/2

#OnThisDay, 7 Aug1948, Fanny Blankers-Koen wins her fourth gold Olympic medal at a single games: the first woman to do so. #WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #OlympicWomen 🗃️ 1/2

#OnThisDay, 7 Aug 1909, Alice Huyler Ramsey and companions arrive in San Francisco, becoming the first women to cross America by car. (We posted about them setting off back on 9 June.) #WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #AmericanHistory 🗃️

#OnThisDay, 6 Aug 1926, American Gertrude Ederle becomes the first woman to swim the English Channel. She was an Olympic swimmer, and had held five world records in swimming. Watch a silent newsreel: www.youtube.com/watc...#OnThisDay, #WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory 🗃️

#OnThisDay, 5 Aug 1984, Joan Benoit won the Olympic marathon, the first year a women's marathon was included at the Games. #OlympicWomen #WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory 🗃️

#OnThisDay, 5 Aug 1888, Bertha Benz drove from Mannheim to Pforzheim: the first journey of 100+km in a car by *anyone*. #WomenInSTEM #EuropeanHistory #WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory 🗃️ 1/2

A great article focusing on a 17th C woman diarist @susannahwalker.bsky.social @womenknowhistory.bsky.social @carvehername.bsky.social @jwomenshistory.bsky.social @womenwritersnet.bsky.social @womenwarriors.com www.theguardian.com/culture/2025...

#OnThisDay, 4 Aug 2017, Erricka Bridgeford organised, with others, the first Ceasefire weekend in Baltimore, Maryland, US. Now called the Baltimore Peace Movement, it asks people to refrain from violence and promote peace for three day periods. Mediator Bridgeford acted as the spokesperson. 1/2

#OnThisDay, 4 Aug 1948, the women’s shot put and long jump events were held for the first time at the Olympics in London. Micheline Ostermeyer won gold in the shot put and Olga Gyarmati won gold in the long jump. #WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #BritishHistory #OlympicWomen 🗃️

Research request! We've just finished If I Am Right And I Know That I Am, Hanne Strager's new biography of Inge Lehman. We'd love to track down one of two dates: the date Lehman was appointed State Geodesist for Denmark in 1928; the date her paper, P', was published in 1936. 1/3

Nice summary of Sophia Duleep Singh via the Historic England newsletter. We're been steadily looking for a date involving her activism to hook a post to, but most are part of the wider movement where we credit groups of women. heritagecalling.com/2025/07/25/t...