📚 Support #ReadItForward in February! Buy kids' books through our Bookshop.org UK link AND 10% will go to BookTrust and @scottishbooktrust We've curated a list of books about women in history for younger readers (and the odd fiction title). Explore it at: uk.bookshop.org/list... * #ReadItForward/2

#OnThisDay, 7 Feb 1971, women in Switzerland win the right to vote in federal elections after a national referendum.* Snail pic is from a suffrage protest in 1928 which was complaining about the slow progress towards #VotesForWomen. #WomenInHistory #SwissHistory 🗃️ 1/2

“The hecklers were yelling 'Go back to the kitchen and cook dinner'.” #OnThisDay, 7 Feb 1969, Diane Crump becomes the first woman to ride as a professional jockey in the USA. #WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #AmericanHistory 🗃️

#OnThisDay, 6 Feb 1918, the Representation of the People Act receives royal assent, allowing some women in the UK the right to vote in general elections. #VotesForWomen #WomenInHistory #BritishHistory 🗃️ 1/2

What a #OTD to celebrate ! Seems a good day to share this interesting #histnursing paper from our latest bulletin ‘Deeds Not Words’: the nurse suffragettes arrested between 1906-1914 ' by Vari Drennan bulletin.ukahn.org/deeds-not-wo...

#OnThisDay, 6 Feb 1987, Mary Gaudron QC was the first woman to be sworn as a justice in the High Court of Australia. #WomenInHistory #AustralianHistory #WomenInLaw 🗃️

#OnThisDay, 6 Feb 1918, the Representation of the People Act receives royal assent, allowing some women in the UK the right to vote in general elections. #VotesForWomen #WomenInHistory #BritishHistory 🗃️ 1/2

#OnThisDay, 6 Feb 1987, Mary Gaudron QC was the first woman to be sworn as a justice in the High Court of Australia. #WomenInHistory #AustralianHistory #WomenInLaw 🗃️

#OtD 5 Feb 1981 240 mostly women workers at the Lee Jeans factory in Greenock Scotland occupied it upon learning that it was due to be closed. They held out 7 months until management caved and agreed to a buyout which kept their jobs stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/1051...

#OnThisDay, 5 Feb 1919, Mary Pickford co-founds United Artists in Hollywood. The production company was an attempt by actors and directors to control their own work rather than being owned by a studio. #ReclaimTheFrame #HollywoodHistory #WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory 🗃️

#OnThisDay, 4 Feb 1981, Dr Gro Harlem Brundtland becomes Prime Minister of Norway for the first of her three terms. She is the first woman to hold the role. She was also Director General of the World Health Organisation between 1998 and 2003. #WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory 🗃️

#OnThisDay, 3 Feb 1995, Eileen Collins becomes the first woman to pilot the Space Shuttle on a mission when she took the helm of #Discovery. She would go on to become the first woman to command a Shuttle. #WomenInSpace #WomenPilots #WomenInHistory 🗃️

#OnThisDay, 3 Feb 1956, Autherine Lucy stepped onto the University of Alabama's campus, becoming the first African-American student to attend classes there. After being expelled, she finally graduates in 1992. [photo with Rosa Parks & Eleanor Roosevelt © Library of Congress] #WomenInHistory 🗃️

#OnThisDay, 2 Feb 1953, Dr Anna de Waal becomes State Secretary for Education, Arts and Sciences in the Netherlands. She is the first woman to hold a ministerial cabinet post in the country. #WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #DutchHistory 🗃️

📚 Support #ReadItForward in February! Buy children's books through our @bookshop_org_uk link AND 10% will go to @BookTrust and @scottishbktrust. We've curated a list of books about women in history for younger readers (and the odd fiction title). Explore it at: uk.bookshop.org/list...

#OnThisDay, 1 Feb 2009, Johanna Sigurdardottir becomes the Prime Minister of Iceland. She was the first openly LGBT head of a government in the world. #WomenInPolitics

#OnThisDay, 1 Feb 1998, Lillian Fishburne becomes the first African-American woman to be a rear Admiral in the US Navy. #WomenInHistory #AmericanHistory 🗃️

#OnThisDay, 1 Feb 1587, Queen Elizabeth I of England signs the death warrant of her first cousin once-removed Mary, Queen of Scots. #WomenInHistory #TudorWomen #BritishHistory 🗃️

Sorry for any confusion today. We had a slight SNAFU with the alt text on today's post. I (Mags) was working with a head cold. I've added a correction. Thank you to people for flagging. We have never, and will never, use AI to generate alt text. It's all artisanal alt text. 🧵 on processes. 1/5

You can read more about her at www.infinite-women.com/women/ida-b-...

This lovely docent gave me a brief tour of the Ida B Wells Museum, which I found purely by accident on a driving trip I made in ‘22 from Los Angeles, to see the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, and the Negro Leagues Hall Of Game in KC.

Messed up the alt text (copy/pasting with a head cold). This shows a row of white women walking through Place de La Concorde in Paris, wearing trousers and jackets and laughing. It looks like it could be the 1930s or the 1950s.

#OnThisDay, 31 Jan 2013, women in Paris are officially allowed to wear trousers. Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, France's minister of women's rights, lifted the ban as “incompatible with the principles of equality between women and men”. The 1799 law had been widely ignored. 1/3

#OnThisDay, 31 Jan 1945, women in Italy gained the right to vote in general as well as local elections. Women voted in Italian general elections for the first time in 1946. #WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #VotesForWomen #ItalianHistory 🗃️ 1/2

Updating our lists on our bookshop. Debating if we should add Heated Rivalry to our general list? uk.bookshop.org/a/15351/9781...

New on kofi, a BTS glimpse at how Mags found a new story to post this week. As always, if you like what we do you can: share our posts to help us reach more people tip us via kofi (or subscribe!) buy a book via our bookshop dot org (UK only) Funds help us with server, book and time costs.

#OnThisDay, 30 Jan 2007, the first all woman UN peacekeeping force arrived in Liberia from India. They provided 24-hour guard duty and conducted night patrols in the capital Monrovia. Thanks to Bluesky follower Louise King#OnThisDay,for finding this one for us.

#OnThisDay, 30 Jan 1913, Ida B Wells forms the Alpha Suffrage Club in Chicago, Illinois, to give a voice to Black women who had been excluded by national suffrage organisations because of their race. #WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #AmericanHistory 🗃️ 1/3

"We aren't super heroes. We are four ordinary women.” #OnThisDay, 29 Jan 1996, Andrea Needham, Joanna Wilson, and Lotta Kronlid break into a BAE aerodrome and damage a Hawk warplane destined to be used by Indonesia’s regime in East Timor. #BritishHistory #WomenInHistory #OTD 🗃️ 1/4

Und sie war auch #Komponistin. Ihr ist das legendäre "Aloha 'Oe" ("Fahre wohl") zu verdanken, hundertfach reproduziert worden. de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aloha_%...

#OnThisDay, 29 Jan 1891, Liliʻuokalani is sworn in as Queen of the Hawaiian Kingdom. She is the first, and only, regnant queen of the country and is deposed in a coup in 1893 that was supported by the US marines. #HawaiianHistory #WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory 🗃️

It is a truth universally acknowledged that #OnThisDay, 28 Jan 1813, a new novel 'by the author of Sense & Sensibility' was published. #WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #BookSky 🗃️ 1/2

Hawaii is the first Overthrow mentioned in this (very good) book. Supported by the Marines, at the provocation of The Committee of Safety (headed by Sanford Dole. Yes, THAT Dole), a group of 8 businessmen seeking favorable conditions under US rule.

#OnThisDay, 27 Jan 1920, Mary Selina Share Jones becomes the first woman to join Gray's Inn in London as a student. No photo of her is online. Membership of an Inn is a requirement for barristers in England and Wales. Until Dec 1919, women were barred from joining. #WomenInHistory #History 🗃️

Remembering Dr. Gladys West (1930-2026), the mathematician whose complex algorithms modeling Earth's shape and satellite data became the foundation for GPS. A true "hidden figure" whose brilliance transformed how billions navigate the world. #GladysWest #GPS #WomenInSTEM #HiddenFigures #STEM #Tech

Do we have any followers who are academics who have studied IWD? (Mags is pitching a story this week and is looking for someone to potentially interview.)

The Scotties are currently running in Mississauga, Ontario. First held in 1965 in Oshawa, many great curlers have competed in the event. And women's curling has a long history in Canada. The Ladies Curling Club of Olds, Alberta in 1922. 📸 Glenbow Archives CU1118460

We missed yesterday due to ill health but it's a fav so here it is today. On 25 Jan 1890, Nellie Bly arrives back in New York to huge crowds, becoming the first *person* to circumnavigate the world in less than 80 days (she took 72). #WomenInHistory #History #AmericanHistory 🗃️ 1/2

#OnThisDay, 26 Jan 1961, Dr Janet Travell is appointed as the Physician to the President of the USA. The role includes being the director of the White House Medical Unit. Travell was the first woman to hold the post. #WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #AmericanHistory 🗃️ 1/2

You can read more about her at www.infinite-women.com/women/elizab... and her sister, Dr. Emily Blackwell at www.infinite-women.com/women/emily-...

#OnThisDay, 24 Jan 1901, British aid-worker Emily Hobhouse first visits Bloemfontein concentration camp in South Africa. Her reporting on the conditions Boers are being held in by the British government causes uproar. A short 🧵 #WomenInHistory #BritishHistory #History 🗃️ 1/6

Shockingly there’s no book about her life. I frequently use her as an example of women’s erasure. A superstar in so many ways (example: she was also the first Black woman US ambassador) but nobody thought she was worth writing a book about?

#OnThisDay, 23 Jan 1977, Patricia R Harris takes up duty as Housing and Urban Development secretary in the US cabinet. She is the first African-American woman to hold a US cabinet post. #WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #WomenInPolitics #AmericanHistory 🗃️

#OnThisDay, 23 Jan 1849, Elizabeth Blackwell graduates with a medical degree. She is the first woman to receive one in the USA. She was also the first woman on the UK medical register. #WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #WomenInMedicine #AmericanHistory 🗃️

📣 Call for Papers! Join us for the Women’s History Network Annual Conference, celebrating 100 years of The Women’s Library. Open to scholars, independent researchers & heritage practitioners. Full info: womenshistorynetwork.org/whn-annual-c... Deadline: 29 March 2026 #WomensHistory #GenderHist

#OnThisDay, 22 Jan 2014, Laimdota Straujuma is sworn in as Prime Minister of Latvia. She was the first woman to hold the role, and served for two years. She focussed on strengthening their defence after the Russian annexation of Crimea from Ukraine.

#OnThisDay, 22 Jan 1944, Sonia Olschanezky is arrested by the Gestapo. She'd run an Special Operations Executive guerrilla network near Paris after the leader was arrested. The British-based SOE supported the French Resistance to Nazi occupation. #WomenInHistory #WorldWar2 🗃️

#OnThisDay, 21 Jan 2017, millions of people around the world take part in the Women's March to protest the first election of Trump as US President. There was at least one march on every continent, including Antarctica.

#OnThisDay, 21 Jan 1648, Margaret Brent demands the right to sit on the Maryland council in her dual roles as a land-owner and Lord Baltimore's attorney. She was denied. #WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #AmericanHistory #VotesForWomen 🗃️ 1/2