Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group/Getty Images
#1
In 1872, nearly 50 years before women were guaranteed the right to vote through the 19th Amendment, Susan B. Anthony was arrested and charged with casting an illegal ballot in that year's presidential election.
Hagen Hopkins/Getty Images News/Getty Images
#2
New Zealand was years ahead of the rest of the world when its government granted women the vote in 1893, almost 30 years before women in America could.
Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
#3
The first female leader to ever be democratically elected in the modern era is Sirimavo Bandaranaike. She was elected prime minister of Sri Lanka in 1960 and then re-elected in 1970.
Bettmann/Bettmann/Getty Images
#4
Victoria Woodhull of the National Woman's Suffrage Association was the first woman to run for president in the United States in 1872.
Bettmann/Bettmann/Getty Images
#5
Women have been serving in the U.S. Congress for more than 100 years. The first woman elected to Congress was Republican Jeannette Rankin in 1916.
Bettmann/Bettmann/Getty Images
#6
In 1964, Patsy Mink became both the first Asian American woman and the first woman of color to be elected to Congress. She would later become the first Asian American to seek the Democratic presidential nomination.
Education Images/Universal Images Group/Getty Images
#7
In 1968, more than 50 years after the first white woman had been elected to Congress, Shirley Chisholm became the first Black woman to serve in Congress.
The Washington Post/The Washington Post/Getty Images
#8
Cuban American Ileana Ros-Lehtinen became the first Hispanic woman elected to Congress in 1989 when she won a special election following a Florida representative's death.
Alex Wong/Getty Images News/Getty Images
#9
In 2021, women hold 27% of seats in Congress, constituting not just a record high but also a 50% increase from what women held in 2011.
Gado/Archive Photos/Getty Images
#10
Katherine Johnson's impressive mathematics skills made history in the 1960s when she helped NASA send a number of men into space.
AFP/AFP/Getty Images
#11
Russia's Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman to travel into space in 1963 after completing 48 orbits in 71 hours.
Space Frontiers/Archive Photos/Getty Images
#12
In 1992, Mae C. Jemison became the first Black woman to travel into space when she spent eight days aboard the U.S. space shuttle Endeavour.
Bettmann/Bettmann/Getty Images
#13
In 1849, Elizabeth Blackwell was the first U.S. woman to obtain a medical degree. She championed women in medicine (even opening a women's college) and urged preventative care and hygiene, noting male doctors didn't wash their hands between patients.
#14
If your kids ever play around on Google Maps, they may be keen to learn about mathematician Gladys West. Her work in developing mathematical modeling of the Earth became the foundation of GPS.
Bettmann/Bettmann/Getty Images
#15
Although heavily involved in discovering parity violation, Chinese-American physicist Chien-Shiung Wu was overlooked when her male colleagues were given the 1957 Nobel Prize in Physics. Her work also included America's development of the atomic bomb.