Welcome to WOW2!
WOW2 is a monthly sister blog to This Week in the War on Women. Here, we learn about and honor women of achievement, including many who’ve been ignored or marginalized in most of the history books, and also mark moments and great events in women’s history.
This Week in the War on Women will post a little later, so be sure to go there next and catch up on the latest dispatches from the frontlines: www.dailykos.com/...
A major milestone in U.S. Women’s History happened this month: the 19th Amendment to the US Constitution was ratified on August 26, 1920, granting women the right to vote.
Read the story of how close it came to notpassing in the “Battle of the Roses” on August 18. Thank You ‘Miss Febb’!
Of course, getting the amendment ratified was only the start — women of color faced years of discrimination that kept them out of the voting booth. Then the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s helped end literacy tests and poll taxes. But just when it seemed the battle for the ballot was finally won, the 21st Century Right-Wing Justices of the Supreme Court dismantled vital sections of the Voting Rights Act. Red States have jumped at the chance to disenfranchise minorities, married women with confusing last names on their IDs, and students who might be harboring leftist tendencies, even closing Motor Vehicle offices in some more liberal districts to make voter registration there more difficult.
August brings us world-class astronomers; a woman pirate as vicious as any of her male counterparts; scholars and diplomats; political leaders and scientists; an Olympic medalist; Labor leaders; performers, composers and writers; innovators in cooking techniques; and a pioneering oceanographer who went into the depths of the ocean in a submersible she helped design and build.
And on August 9th, read about Prathip Uengsongtham Hata, one of the most inspiring stories I’ve come across, a woman who fought her way from non-person to national hero.
As we see here at WOW2, month after month, women have been fighting all along to take our rightful places using ALL our skills and abilities. The Human Race needs the best from Women AND Men working together if we’re to survive the Global Climate Crisis, and other 21st Century challenges like over-population and pandemics.
August Women Trailblazers and Events in OUR History
- August 1, 1786 – Caroline Herschel discovers the first of eight comets
- August 1, 1818 –Maria Mitchell born, astronomer, known for comet discovery and observation, first American woman professional astronomer. First woman member of American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Director of Vassar College Observatory and inspirational teacher to next generation of women in Astronomy
- August 1, 1923 –Beatrice Medicine, Standing Rock Sioux anthropologist, focused on the roles of Lakota women in changes facing their cultures in bilingual education, alcohol and drug use, domestic abuse, socialization of children, and identity needs, author of Learning to Be an Anthropologist and Remaining Native
- August 1, 1980 –Vigdis Finnbogadottir takes office as the President of Iceland, becoming the world’s first democratically elected female head of state
- August 2, 1343–Jean de Clisson’s husband is executed for treason without proof being presented. She sells her holdings, buys three warships, outfits them with black hulls and crimson sails, and becomes "The Lioness of Brittany," ferocious pirate captain of the Black Fleet, seeking revenge against French King Phillip VI and French nobles she blames for her spouse's death. She personally beheads with an ax any French noble aboard captured vessels, but always leaves one survivor to relate her vengeance
- August 2, 1902 –Mina Rees born, mathematician, first woman president of American Association for the Advancement of Science (1971)
- August 3, 1851 –Isabella Caroline Somerset born, President of British Women’s Temperance Association, women’s rights and birth control campaigner (“sin begins with an unwelcome child”), editor of feminist magazine The Woman’s Signal
- August 3, 1905 –Maggie Kuhn born, seniors rights activist, founder of Gray Panthers
- August 3, 1937–Yvonne Kauger born, Associate Justice on Oklahoma Supreme Court, appointed to Court's District 4 seat (1984), Oklahoma Chief Justice (1997-98). Member of Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma, founder of Gallery of the Plains Indian and co-founder of Red Earth. Serves as Symposium Coordinator of the Sovereignty Symposium. Inducted into Oklahoma Women’s Hall of Fame (2001)
- August 3, 1984– Mary Lou Retton’s perfect 10 vault wins gold at the L.A. Olympics
- August 4, 1890 –BarbaraNachtrieb Armstrong born, first female law professor at major university law school, Boalt Hall, University of California Berkeley. Served on California Social Insurance Commission (1915-19). Expert on social economics and labor law (PhD Economics 1921), author of Insuring the Essentials (1932). Served as chief of staff for social security planning of Committee on Economic Security, and was major contributor to the Social Security Act. Her two-volume work California Family Law (1953) regarded as the seminal work in the field. Served as consultant at 1961 White House Conference on the Aged and Aging. The Barbara Nachtrieb Armstrong endowed chair at Berkeley honors her.
- August 4, 1944 – A Dutch informer tells Gestapo location of Anne Frank, her family and 4 others – all are arrested and sent to to Auschwitz. Only Anne’s father Otto survived.
- August 5, 1529 – Treaty of Cambrai signed, negotiated by Louise of Savoy and Margaret of Austria representing her nephew, Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. Also known as Paix des Dames, or the Ladies’ Peace
- August 5, 1876 – Mary Ritter Beard born, American historian, archivist, feminist, social justice and labor movement advocate; author On Understanding Women, America Through Women’s Eyes, and Woman As Force In History: A Study in Traditions and Realities
- August 5, 1880 –Gertrude Rush born, first African American female lawyer in Iowa, co-founder of National Bar Association
- August 5, 1888 –Bertha Benz drives round trip from Mannheim to Pforzheim in the first long distance automobile trip. Route now called the Bertha Benz Memorial Route
- August 5, 1926 –Betsy Jolas born, important post-WWII French composer, professor at Mills College
- August 6, 1886 – Inez Milholland Boissevain born, lawyer, suffrage leader; gowned in white and riding a white horse, she lead a suffrage parade in Washington, DC, during Woodrow Wilson’s inauguration
- August 6, 1903 –Virginia Durr born, civil rights activist and author, founding member of the Southern Conference on Human Welfare (1938)
- August 6, 1911 –Lucille Ball born, comedian, actor, TV executive, starred in TV series “I Love Lucy” (1950-60), first woman owner of major TV studio, Desilu Productions
- August 6, 1926 –Gertrude Ederle becomes first woman to complete swimming across the English Channel
- August 6, 1965 – The Voting Rights Act outlaws the discriminatory literacy tests that had been used to prevent African Americans from voting. Suffrage is finally fully extended to African American women
- August 6, 1991–Takako Doi becomes first female speaker of Japan’s House of Representatives
- August 7, 1813 –Paulina Kellogg Wright Davis born, American abolitionist, educator and suffragist, co-founder of New England Woman Suffrage Association
- August 7, 1890 –Elizabeth Gurley Flynn born, American activist, labor leader and feminist, founding member of American Civil Liberties Union, leader in Industrial Workers of the World, advocate of women’s rights, birth control, women’s suffrage and day care centers for working mothers. She was the inspiration for Joe Hill's song,"The Rebel Girl" (1915)
- August 7, 1909 –Alice Huyler Ramsey becomes first to complete a cross-country automobile trip. She traveled with three friends (none of whom could drive) for 59 days from New York, NY to San Francisco, CA
- August 7, 1928 –Betsy Byars born, children’s author, won Newbery Medal for Summer of the Swans
- August 7, 1938 –Helen Caldicott born, Australian physician, author, activist, opposes use of nuclear power and weapons, hosts radio program If You Love This Planet
- August 7, 1962–Frances Oldham Kelsey receives U.S. President’s Award for Distinguished Federal Civilian Service for refusing to authorize thalidomide
- August 8, 1814 –Esther Hobart Morris born, first female U.S. Justice of the Peace, abolitionist; appointed J.P. when previous justice resigned in protest over Wyoming extending suffrage to women
- August 8, 1857 –Cécile Chaminade born, French pianist and composer, her work was successful during her life time; largely forgotten today, most popular piece is Flute Concertino in D major, Op. 107
- August 8, 1884 –Sara Teasdale born, lyric poet, Pulitzer Prize for Love Songs; also published Sonnets to Duse and Other Poems and Helen of Troy and Other Poems
- August 8, 1896 –Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, author, Pulitzer Prize for her novel The Yearling
- August 8, 1969 – Executive order 11478 issued by President Nixon requires each federal department and agency to establish and maintain an affirmative action program of equal employment opportunity for civilian employees and applicants
- August 9, 1861 – Dorothea Klumpke Roberts born in San Francisco, astronomer, Director of Paris Observatory Bureau of Measurements, elected Chevalier de la Légion, first recipient of "Prix de Dames" from Société astronomique de France (1889)
- August 9, 1867 –Evelina Haverfield born, militant British suffragette, worked in South Africa during Boer War, during WWI founded British Women’s Emergency Corps, worked as nurse in Serbia. After WWI, set up center for Serbian war orphans with her partner Vera “Jack” Holme
- August 9, 1899 –P.L. Travers born, Australian author of Mary Poppins books
- August 9, 1919 –Leona Woods Marshall Libby born, physicist, only woman on team that built world’s first nuclear reactor, worked on Manhattan Project, professor at New York University and UCLA
- August 9, 1952 –Prathip Uengsongtham Hata born, Thai activist, “Angel of Khlong Toel” slum, where she was born with no legal status. Only able to go to a cheap private school until she was 12, when her parents ran out of money. She scraped together enough out of her own earnings to complete her secondary education in evening classes. Founded “One Baht a Day School” for slum children in her home (a Thai Baht is equal to about 29 cents U.S.) During a fight to prevent eviction of slum dwellers by the Port Authority, her school was publicized, gaining financial supporters, and Thammasat University students as volunteer teachers. The school was moved into a properly equipped building and eventually recognized as a public school. The policy banning children without birth certificates from public education was revised. She received the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Public Service in 1978, and used the prize money to set up Duang Prateep Foundation (flame of hope). In 2000, she was elected to the Thai Senate. In 2004 she received The World's Children's Prize for the Rights of the Child.
- August 9, 1995 – Roberta Cooper Ramo becomes first woman president of American Bar Association
- August 10, 1858 –Anna Julia Cooper born, scholar, author, educator, one of earliest African American women to earn a PhD, from University of Paris-Sorbonne (1924)
- August 10, 1894 –Dorothy Jacobs Bellanca born, labor organizer-activist, Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America and NY branch of American Labor Party
- August 10, 1993 – Ruth Bader Ginsburg is sworn in as the second woman and 107th Justice to serve on the US Supreme Court
- August 11, 1897 –Louise Bogan born, American poet, Library of Congress Poetry Consultant (1945), poetry editor of The New Yorker magazine
- August 11, 1912 – Eva Ahnert-Rohlfs born, German astronomer, observer of variable stars
- August 11, 1937 –Edith Wharton born, author, Pulitzer Prize for her novel The Age of Innocence, three time Nobel Prize nominee
- August 11, 1941–Elizabeth Holtzman born, youngest woman elected to U.S. Congress, (D-NY, 1973-81), first woman District Attorney in New York City (1981)
- August 11, 1942 – Actor Hedy Lamarr and composer George Antheil receive a patent for a frequency-hopping spread spectrum communication system, the forerunner of wireless and cellular communication
- August 12, 30 BC –Cleopatra VII, last of Egyptian Ptolemaic dynasty, commits suicide after defeat at Battle of Actium and death of Mark Anthony
- August 12, 1806 –Elizabeth Oakes Smith born, author, lecturer and women’s rights activist, poem “The Sinless Child” and feminist essay series published in NY Tribune (c.1850)
- August 12, 1833 –Lillie Devereux Blake born, author, suffragist, reformer, Civil War war correspondent for NY Evening Post, NY World and Philadephia Press
- August 12, 1867 –Edith Hamilton born, German-American author, The Greek Way and Mythology
- August 12, 1914 –Ruth Lowe born, Canadian songwriter, her songs “I’ll Never Smile Again” and “Put Your Dreams Away” were early major hits for a young Frank Sinatra. The recording of “I’ll Never Smile Again” by Tommy Dorsey’s Otchestra with Frank Sinatra was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1982.
- August 12, 1972 – Wendy Rue founds National Association for Female Executives (NAFE), the largest U.S. businesswomen’s organization
- August 12, 1990 –Sue Hendrickson discovers largest most complete Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton to date in South Dakota, called “Sue” in her honor. Now displayed at Chicago’s Field Museum
- August 13, 1818–Lucy Stone born, suffragist, abilitionist, co-organizer of first National Women’s Convention, co-founder of American Woman Suffrage Association, founder of the Woman’s Journal, boldly kept her own name when she married
- August 13, 1893 –Eva Dykes born, first African-American woman to earn a doctoral degree (in English from Radcliffe College in 1921), professor at Howard University, and Chair of the English Dept. at Oakwood College
- August 13, 1918 –Opha Mae Johnson first of 305 women US Marine Corps enlistees
- August 13, 2014 –Maryam Mirzakhani wins Fields Medal for Outstanding Discoveries in Mathematics, becoming first woman and first Iranian to win the medal
- August 14, 1782 –Suriname forbids selling slave mothers without their babies
- August 14, 1848 –Margaret Lindsay born, Irish-English astronomer, pioneer in spectroscopy, co-author of Atlas of Representative Stellar Spectra (1899) and a contributor to the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition
- August 14, 1899 –Caroline Ware born, history professor, pioneer in “cultural approach to History,” expert on consumer affairs, Chair of American Association of University Women Committee on Social Studies
- August 14, 1901 –Alice Rivaz born, Swiss feminist and author, worked with International Labour Organization, novels Nuages dans la main (Clouds in your Hands) and Jette ton pain (Cast your Bread) dealt with women in art and other feminist themes
- August 14, 1911 –Ethel Payne born, called “The First Lady of the Black Press,” first African American female radio and television commentator at a national news organization (CBS-1972)
- August 14, 1928 –Lina Wertmüller born, Swiss-Italian film director-screenwriter, first woman nominated for Academy Award for Best Director for Seven Beauties
- August 14, 1986 – Rear Admiral Grace Murray Hopper retires from active duty in the US Navy, pioneering computer scientist and inventor of computer language COBOL, she was the oldest officer still on active duty at time of her retirement
- August 15, 1903 –Ellen Winston born, first U.S. Commissioner of Welfare in Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (1963-1967)
- August 15, 1913 –Aurora Castillo born, community activist, co-founder Mothers of East Los Angeles (1984) working against proposed prison and hazardous waste dump in East L.A.
- August 15, 1913 –Tōhoku Imperial University of Japan becomes first Japanese university to admit female students.
- August 15, 1918 –Fay Knopp born, pacifist and feminist, prison reformer, member of Women Strike for Peace, pioneered more humane treatment of prisoners based on compassion and a belief that people can change themselves
- August 15, 1970 –Patricia Pailinkas becomes first woman to play professionally in American football game as placekick holder for Orlando Panthers.
- August 15, 1995 – In South Carolina, Shannon Faulkner becomes first female cadet to enroll at The Citadel (She dropped out less than a week later because of death threats to her parents. Citadel cadets celebrated openly on campus after her announcement.)
- August 16, 1902 –Georgette Heyer born, British novelist, detective fiction and historical romance, often set in Regency period. Her description of Battle of Waterloo in An Infamous Army was so definitive, it was used by military history instructors at Royal Military Academy Sandhurst
- August 17, 1891 –Marion Kenworthy born, psychiatrist, first woman president of the American Psychoanalytic Association, professor at New York School of Social Work (now Columbia University School of Social Work)
- August 17, 1893 –Mae West born, iconic sex symbol, playwright and screenwriter, (Sex, Diamond Lil, Goodness Had Nothing to Do With It) started in Vaudeville, starred in plays, movies, radio, and television for seven decades
- August 17, 1906 –Hazel Bishop born, organic chemist, created first “kiss-proof” lipstick (1949), founded Hazel Bishop cosmetics, then Hazel Bishop Laboratories, which developed chemical products like leather cleaner and solid stick perfume. Later also successful Wall Street broker and financial analyst, then first Revlon Chair of Cosmetics Marketing at New York’s Fashion Institute of Technology.
- August 17, 1920 –Lida Moser born, photojournalist and post-WWII documentary photographer
- August 17, 1927 –Elaine Hedges born, educator, helped create field of Women’s Studies, founding member of National Women’s Studies Association, founded Towson University’s Women’s Studies Program, one of oldest programs in U.S., writer-editor for The Feminist Press
- August 17, 1945 –Rachel Pollack born, transgender essayist, science-fiction/fantasy novelist (Unquenchable Fire, Godmother Night) and non-fiction author (The Body Of The Goddess, Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom)
- August 17, 1947 –Syliva Nasar born in Germany, came to U.S. at age four, writer-journalist, best known for A Beautiful Mind, biography of John Forbes Nash, also wrote Grand Pursuit: The Story of Economic Genius, her theory on positive historical impact of economics
- August 17, 1949 –Sue Draheim born, classically-trained-violinist-turned-fiddler, played music from Celtic to Zydeco, recorded two albums with the all-women group Any Old Time String Band, which were combined and re-released as one album, I Bid You Goodnight (1996)
- August 17, 1953 –Herta Müller, born in Romania, German author, winner of 2009 Nobel Prize in Literature, Atemschaukel (The Hunger Angel)
- August 17, 1990 –Phyllis Polander sues Mike Tyson for sexual harassment
- August 18, 1587 – In Roanoke, Virginia Dare is first English child born in the Americas
- August 18, 1893 –Ragini Devi born, American specialist in classical and folk ethnographic dances, won acclaim from dance critics, wrote Dance Dialects of India in 1972, later performed with her daughter and granddaughter
- August 18, 1902 –Leona Baumgartner born, physician, first woman to be commissioner of the New York City Dept. of Health (1954), advocated for public health education, head of the U.S. Agency for International Development (1962)
- August 18, 1902 –Mardy Murie born, author and conservationist, ”Mother of Wilderness,” worked tirelessly for wilderness preservation, including National Arctic Wildlife Refuge, which today is in danger
- August 18, 1920–Battle of the Roses– Yellow roses were worn by suffrage supporters, red roses by opponents. Tennessee became the 36th and deciding state to ratify the 19th Amendment, by a single vote, cast by 24-year-old Harry Burn who had been in the anti-ratification camp and was still wearing his red rose when he voted for passage, He received a last-minute letter from his mother that morning. Phoebe Ensminger Burn, called “Miss Febb,” wrote, “Hurrah, and vote for suffrage! Don’t keep them in doubt. I notice some of the speeches against. They were bitter. I have been watching to see how you stood, but have not noticed anything yet.” She ended the missive with a rousing endorsement of the suffragist leader Carrie Chapman Catt, imploring her son to “be a good boy and help Mrs.Catt put the ‘rat’ in ratification.” He explained his sudden change of heart, “I know that a mother’s advice is always safest for her boy to follow, and my mother wanted me to vote for ratification.”
- August 18, 1927–Rosalynn Carter born, U.S. First Lady (1977-81), politically active while in White House, focused on mental health, senior citizens, and community voluntarism, co-founded the Carter Center with her husband (1982)
- August 19, 1895 –Vera Weisbord born, radical activist, labor organizer, and feminist, organized women textile worker strikes in 1920s, active in Civil Rights Movement, wrote her autobiography, A Radical Life, in 1977, also a painter
- August 19, 1920 –Donna Allen born, founder of Women’s Institute for Freedom of the Press (1972) to publicize and research women’s issues ignored by main stream media
- August 19, 1981 – President Reagan nominates Sandra Day O’Connor as the first woman Supreme Court Justice
- August 20, 1868 –Ellen Crosby Roosevelt born, tennis player; International Tennis Hall of Fame inductee; won 1890 US Championships singles title, and won doubles with her sister Grace, first and only pair of sisters to win title until Williams sisters (1999)
- August 20, 1946 –Connie Chung born, network news correspondent
- August 20, 1958 –Patricia Rozema born, Canadian film director-producer-writer (I’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing, Mansfield Park, When Night Is Falling, Into the Forest)
- August 21, 1897 –Constance McLaughlin Green born, historian author, Pulitzer Prize for History for Washington, Village and Capital, 1800-1878
- August 22, 1883 – Ruth Underhill born, anthropologist and professor, studied with Ruth Benedict who encouraged traveling with native women to learn their history, wrote about Papago Native American culture, and taught in Bureau of Indian Affairs schools
- August 22, 1912 –Cornelia “Coya” Knutson born, first woman elected to U.S. Congress from Minnesota (1955-1959), first woman on Agriculture Committee, defeated after infamous “Come Home Coya” letter supposedly written by her estranged husband
- August 23, 1899 –Grace Chu born, cookbook author and teacher, emigrated from Shanghai in 1920 with a scholarship from Wellesley College, taught Chinese cooking, wrote Madame Chu’s Cooking School Cookbook in 1975
- August 23, 1902 – Fanny Farmer opens the “School of Cookery” in Boston, MA
- August 23, 1944 –Antonia Novello born, Puerto Rican physican and public official, first Hispanic U.S. Surgeon General
- August 24, 1904 –Mary Burchell born, pseudonym of Ida Cook, English activist and author; with sister, Mary Louise Cook, helped Jews escape from Nazis during 1930s; known for autobiography We Followed Our Stars (republished as Safe Passage.)
- August 24, 1950 –Edith Sampson, lawyer and judge, first African-American U.S. delegate to United Nations, and first U.S. African-American representative to NATO
- August 25, 1828 –Jane Lathrop Stanford born, American educator and philanthropist, co-founder of Stanford University; funded and operated the university after her husband’s death in order to keep it open
- August 25, 1950 –Althea Gibson, at age 23, becomes first black player at U.S. National Tennis Championships (US Open). 1951 - first black player at Wimbledon.
- August 26, 1898 –Peggy Guggenheim born, art collector and socialite, started buying modern art in 1938 and amassed The Peggy Guggenheim Collection, housed in her former home, Palazzo Venier dei Leoni, on the Grand Canal in Venice
- August 26, 1908 –Cynthia Wedel born, first woman elected President of the National Council of Churches (1969-1972), president of the World Council of Churches (1975-1983), argued that women should be treated as equals in the church
- August 26, 1920 – The 19th Amendment of the US Constitution is ratified granting women the right to vote
- August 26, 1970 – Betty Friedan leads a nationwide protest called the Women’s Strike for Equality in NYC on the fiftieth anniversary of women’s suffrage
- August 26, 1971 – First “Women’s Equality Day,” initiated by Representative Bella Abzug, is established by Presidential Proclamation and reaffirmed annually
- August 26, 1989 –Mayumi Moriyama becomes chief cabinet secretary in Japanese cabinet,first woman cabinet appointee, first woman Japanese Minister of Education
- August 27, 1796 –Sophia Smith born, founder of Smith College for women
- August 27, 1872 –Mary Anderson born, labor leader and activist, Women’s Trade Union League, first director of Women’s Bureau in the U.S. Department of Labor
- August 27, 1927 – The “Famous Five” Canadian women file a petition to Supreme Court of Canada, asking, “Does the word ‘Persons’ in Section 24 of the British North America Act, 1867, include female persons?”
- August 28, 1834 –Clara Erskine Clement born, traveler and author; History of Egypt, and Women Artists in Europe and America.
- August 28, 1915 –Tasha Tudor born, illustrator and author of children’s books, Caldecott Honors for Mother Goose, author of series starting with Corgiville Fair
- August 28, 1917 –Woman suffrage protesters outside the White House compare President Wilson to the German Kaiser. They are arrested, sentenced to work camps and then their hunger strike is ended by forced feeding
- August 28, 1963 – More than 250,000 gather for March on Washington, DC, and listen to Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech
- August 29, 1913 –Sylvia Kaye born, lyricist and composer, wrote over 100 songs for her husband, Danny Kaye; also television producer, and teacher
- August 29, 1915–Ingrid Bergman born, Swedish International Film Icon, winner of three Academy Awards, best remembered for Casablanca, in her 45 year career, made 60 films, also appeared on stage, television and in radio versions of literature
- August 29, 1926–Helene Glykatzi-Ahrweiler Greek-born historian, first woman Principal of the Université de Paris Panthéon-Sorbonne in its 700 year history
- August 30, 1797 –Mary Shelley born English author, Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus is most famous work; used women characters in her historical novels Valperga and Perkin Warbeck to expand beyond masculine version of historical events
- August 30, 1907 –Luisa Moreno born, labor leader and civil rights activist, emigrated from Guatemala to Mexico, helped organize“El Congreso del Pueblo de Habla Espanola” (Spanish-Speaking Peoples Congress) in 1938, worked for United Cannery, Agricultural, Packing, and Allied Workers of America (UCAPAWA)
- August 30, 1918 –Fanny Kaplan shoots and wounds Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin, leading to the decree for Red Terror
- August 30, 1935 –Sylvia Earle born, oceanographer, pioneer in use of SCUBA gear, first woman to serve as chief scientist at NOAA, co-designer and builder of a submersible craft, the first to reach 3,000 foot depths, author Atlas of the Ocean: The Deep Frontier
- August 30, 1966 –Constance Baker Motley confirmed as U.S. district judge and becomes first Black woman on federal bench
- August 30, 1984 – Judith A. Resnick is second US woman in space, traveling on the first flight of the space shuttle Discovery
- August 31, 1842 –Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin born, publisher, journalist, suffragist, civil rights activist, editor of Women’s Era, first newspaper published by and for African-American women, founder of National Federation of Afro-American Women and the Women’s Era Club, co-founder of American Woman Suffrage Association
- August 31, 1870 –Maria Montessori born, Italian physician and educator, her philosophy of education still in use today