importantwomensbirthdays

[importantwomensbirthdays]

Bridgette Gordon

Basketball player Bridgette Gordon was born in 1967 in DeLand, Florida. As a member of the University of Tennessee women's basketball team, Gordon played in the Final Four in four consecutive seasons, and she and her teammates won national championships in 1987 and 1989. She also set a record for most free throws in a single game with 17. At the 1988 Olympics, Gordon was a member of the gold medal winning US women's team. After college, she played professional basketball in the US, Italy, and Turkey. In 2007, Gordon was inducted into the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame. In 2023, she was chosen as women's basketball head coach at Florida A&M University.

#sports #athletes #women's sports #basketball #women's basketball #woman athletes #florida #african-american #college basketball #university of tennessee #tennessee #Youtube

[importantwomensbirthdays]

Sharon Carstairs

Sharon Carstairs was born in 1942 in Halifax, Nova Scotia. In 1984, Carstairs was appointed leader of the Liberal Party in Manitoba, making her the first woman in the province's history to lead a major political party. In 1994, Carstairs was appointed to the Senate of Canada. From 2001 to 2003, she was Leader of the Government in the Senate and Minister with Special Responsibility for Palliative Care. Carstairs used this role to direct government money to programs and research in palliative care. She secured the funding to create the Canadian Virtual Hospice, an educational website with resources on loss, advanced illness, and palliative care. The site reaches millions in Canada and around the world. In 2016, Carstairs was appointed to the Order of Canada for her work championing palliative care.

#canada #canadian #women leaders #palliative care #politics #women in politics #manitoba #canadian politics

[importantwomensbirthdays]

Bobbi Humphrey

Jazz flutist Barbara Ann "Bobbi" Humphrey was born in 1950 in Marlin, Texas. Humphrey is often called the "First Lady of Flute". During her career, she has performed with Duke Ellington and played on a Stevie Wonder album. She landed her first record deal at the age of 21, becoming the first woman to sign with Blue Note Records. In 1973, Humphrey released her first LP to enormous commercial success, and was invited to perform at the prestigious Montreux International Music Festival. In 1976, Billboard named her "Best Female Instrumentalist". In 1994, Humphrey founded her own record label, Paradise Sounds Records.

#flute #flutists #jazz #jazz musicians #women musicians #black women #black history #african-american #Youtube

[importantwomensbirthdays]

Elizabeth Goudge

Elizabeth Goudge was born in 1900 in Wells, England. Over the course of her literary career, Goudge published more than forty titles, including short stories, novels, nonfiction, and children's books. Her novel Green Dolphin Street which won the Literary Guild Award and the MGM Award and was adapted into an Academy Award-winning film. Goudge's children's book, Little White Horse, won the 1946 Carnegie Medal. She was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and a founding member of the Romantic Novelists' Association.

Elizabeth Goudge died in 1984 at the age of 83.

#writers #woman writers #books #authors #woman authors #romance novels

[importantwomensbirthdays]

Chloe Kim

Chloe Kim was born in 2000 in Long Beach, California. Kim began snowboarding at age 4, and won her first X Games medal at the age of 13. She is the only competitor in the history of the X Games to win three gold medals before age 16. At the 2018 Winter Olympics, Kim won gold in the women's halfpipe. She won gold medals in that same event at the 2019 and 2021 World Championships. Kim returned to the Olympics in 2022 to claim another gold medal in the women's halfpipe.

#snowboarding #sports #athletes #women's sports #winter sports #snowboarders #asian american #korean american #Youtube

[importantwomensbirthdays]

Paula Fox

Paula Fox was born in New York City in 1923. Fox published twenty books for children, including the 1974 Newbery Medal winner, The Slave Dancer. In 1978, she won the highest honor in children's literature, Hans Christian Andersen medal, for her body of work. In 1983, Fox's book A Place Apart won a National Book Award. She also wrote novels for adults. Her 1970 novel Desperate Characters was adapted to film and won the admiration of Jonathan Franzen. Towards the end of her career, Fox published two memoirs: Borrowed Finery, which focused on her childhood, and The Coldest Winter: A Stringer in Liberated Europe, about her time as a news correspondent in Warsaw and Paris.

Paula Fox died in 2017 at the age of 93.

#children's authors #authors #writers #woman writers #woman authors #books

[importantwomensbirthdays]

Hedaya Malak Wahba

Hedaya Malak Wahba was born in 1993 in Cairo, Egypt. At the 2011 African Games, Wahba won a gold medal competing in Tae Kwon Do. The following year, she represented her country at the London Olympics. In 2016, Wahba won gold at the African Championships. That same year, she won an Olympic bronze medal in women's featherweight Tae Kwon Do. At the Tokyo Olympics, she took home another bronze medal, this time in the women's -67kg category.

#sports #athletes #women athletes #tae kwon do #martial arts #egypt #egyptian #arab #arab athletes #arab women #muslim women #Youtube

[importantwomensbirthdays]

Mary Kawena Pukui

Mary Kawena Pukui was born in 1895 in Kaʻū, Hawaii. Pukui was a scholar who devoted herself to preserving traditional Hawaiian culture. She produced thousands of pages of translations and wrote or contributed to over 50 scholarly works. Pukui co-wrote The Hawaiian Dictionary with Samuel H. Elbert, and the 1986 edition of the book is still the standard source for spelling and definitions in the Hawaiian language. She collected and translated nearly 3,000 Hawaiian proverbs and sayings in the book Ōlelo Noʻeau. Pukui was also a hula expert and composed more than 150 songs and chants.

Mary Kawena Pukui died in 1986 at the age of 91.

#hawaii #hawai'i #indigenous culture #indigenous women #hawaiian #history #hawaiian history #hawaiian culture #native hawaiian

[importantwomensbirthdays]

Eva Gonzalès

Impressionist painter Eva Gonzalès was born in Paris in 1849. Trained by Édouard Manet, Gonzalès' produced around 124 paintings and pastel works in her short life. She exhibited her painting The Little Soldier at the 1870 Paris Salon, and she had other paintings accepted to the Salon in 1878 and 1879. Gonzalès' work can be found in the collections of museums throughout the world, including the National Gallery of Ireland in Dublin, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and the Artizon Museum in Tokyo.

Eva Gonzalès died in 1883 at the age of 34.

Image

#art #artists #art history #impressionists #impressionism #women artists #painters #france #french

[importantwomensbirthdays]

Keiko Abe

Marimba player Keiko Abe was born in 1937 in Tokyo, Japan. Abe is one of the world's best-known solo marimba players. She began playing the marimba at age 12, and started gaining notoriety at 14 after winning an NHK talent competition. Abe has greatly influenced the evolution of marimba music by creating new techniques as well as commissioning and writing compositions. She also worked with the Yamaha Corporation to develop the five-octave marimba, which became the standard size for concert marimba. She has performed in over 60 countries. In 1993, Abe was inducted into the Percussive Arts Society Hall of Fame, becoming the first woman to receive this honor.

#marimba #music #musicians #women in music #japan #japanese #percussion #percussionists #asia #asian #Youtube

[importantwomensbirthdays]

Althea T.L. Simmons

Civil rights activist Althea T.L. Simmons was born in 1924 in Shreveport, Louisiana. In 1979, Simmons became chief of the NAACP's Washington Bureau, a position she held until her death in 1990. She was also the organization's chief lobbyist in DC. In 1982, she successfully campaigned for an extension of the Voting Rights Act. She successfully lobbied for important legislation, such as a Congressional override of the presidential veto of the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act of 1986.

Althea T.L. Simmons died in 1990 at the age of 66.

#black history #civil rights #african-american #black women #african-american women #women leaders

[importantwomensbirthdays]

Lee Ya-Ching

Actress and aviator Lee Ya-Ching was born in 1912 in Haifeng County, China. As a teenager, Lee was one of China's top silent film actresses and starred in eight movies. She later went to Europe to continue her education, and set her sights on aviation after seeing an airshow in Paris. Lee enrolled at the Ecole Aero Club de Suisse in Geneva, and in 1933, she became the first woman at that school to earn a pilot's license. After returning to her home country, Lee became the first woman to receive a pilot's license from the Chinese government, and completed a 30,000-mile air survey for the Chinese Army. After the Japanese invasion of China, she served her country by flying Red Cross planes with supplies from Hong Kong to Canton. Between 1938 and 1943, Lee flew across North and South American to raise money for Chinese war victims.

Lee Ya-Ching died in 1998 at the age of 85.

Image

#history #women's history #chinese history #china #asia #asian history #pilots #aviation #women in aviation #film #silent film

[importantwomensbirthdays]

Veronica Linklater

Baroness Veronica Linklater was born in Scotland in 1943. Baroness Linklater spent her career championing prison reform and child welfare. In 1985, she helped establish the Butler Trust, an organization that promotes the rehabilitation of offenders. In the course of her work, Baroness Linklater reportedly visited nearly every prison in the UK. In 1992, she founded The New School, Butterstone for children who had difficulties in mainstream education. In 1997, Baroness became a Life Peer, and she served in the House of Lords until 2016.

Veronica Linklater died in 2022 at the age of 79.

#united kingdom #scotland #scottish #prison reform #women leaders

[importantwomensbirthdays]

Barbara Anderson

Barbara Anderson was born in 1926 in Hastings, New Zealand. Anderson was one of New Zealand's leading fiction writers. While her work had appeared in journals and magazines, she did not publish a collection until she was in her sixties. That short story collection, I Think We Should Go into the Jungle, was shortlisted for both the New Zealand Book Award for Fiction and the Wattie Award. Anderson's novel Portrait of the Artist's Wife won the 1992 Wattie Award, and was critically acclaimed in both the US and the UK. She published nine more titles, continuing her international success. In 2011, Anderson received the Arts Foundation Icon Award.

Barbara Anderson died in 2013 at the age of 86.

#writers #authors #women writers #new zealand

[importantwomensbirthdays]

Edna Lewis

Chef and author Edna Lewis was born in 1916 in Freetown, Virginia. Lewis came to be known as the "grande dame of southern cooking" and the "mother of soul food" for her work in promoting southern cuisine. She opened a restaurant in New York City, Café Nicholson, where she cooked for luminaries such as Truman Capote, Eleanor Roosevelt, Greta Garbo, and Tennessee Williams. After she left Café Nicholson, she continued to build her reputation as a chef. Lewis wrote four books, and received nearly every major culinary industry award, including a James Beard Living Legend Award and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Association of Culinary Professionals.

Edna Lewis died in 2006 at the age of 89.

#chefs #cooking #southern food #southern cuisine #black women #black history #women's history #culinary history #southern history #Youtube

[importantwomensbirthdays]

Gabrielle Kirk McDonald

Gabrielle Kirk McDonald was born in 1942 in St. Paul, Minnesota. McDonald began her legal career working as a civil rights lawyer for the NAACP. In 1979, she was appointed to the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas, where she served as a judge until 1988. In 1993, the UN General Assembly chose McDonald as one of eleven judges for the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. From 1997 to 1999, she served as the tribunal's president. McDonald later became a judge on the Iran-United States Claims Tribunal.

#law #women in law #black women #international law #african-american #african-american laywers #black laywers #women judges #Youtube

[importantwomensbirthdays]

Inez Fung

Atmospheric scientist Inez Fung was born in Hong Kong in 1949. Fung is one of the world's foremost experts on climate and the carbon cycle. She is currently a professor of atmospheric science at UC Berkley. Fung has won numerous awards, including NASA's Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal, and the Carl Gustaf-Rossby Research Medal, the American Meteorological Society's highest honor for atmospheric scientists. She is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, and was a contributor to the Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Image source: Whitehouse.gov

#science #scientists #women in science #climate science #atmospheric science #hong kong #woc #women of color #asian-american