Golda Mabovitz was born in Kiev, Russia on May 3, 1898 and raised in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She married Morris Meyerson before moving to Tel Aviv, which was part of Palestine in 1921. There she became actively involved in the labour movement and the creation of the Jewish state of Israel. Shortly after Israel became independent in 1948, she was named minister of labour, a post she held until 1956. Prime Minister Ben Gurion eventually appointed her foreign minister, a post she held until 1966....

U.S. Supreme Court’s Dred Scott decision outlaws slavery. Dred Scott was a black slave who lived in the slave state of Missouri. In 1846, when Scott’s master moved briefly to Illinois and Wisconsin – both “free states” – before returning to Missouri, Scott saw an opportunity to sue for his freedom. Scott won his case in Missouri, only to have the Missouri Supreme Court overturn the ruling. When the case proceeded to the U.S. Supreme Court, seven of the nine justices decided against Scott on...

U.S. Supreme Court: Black students can attend schools and universities. In the early 1950s, black and white students in many states were governed by policies of “separate but equal,” which meant they would attend separate educational institutions on the guise that they could be equal. When the University of North Carolina was ordered to admit three black students in 1954, it appealed the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court. The court’s March 5, 1956 ruling upholding the decision rankled other...

Bertha Wilson becomes first woman appointed to Canada’s Supreme Court. Bertha Wilson was born in Kirkcaldy, Scotland in 1923 and earned an MA and teaching diploma from the University of Aberdeen before emigrating to Canada with her husband in 1949. Her desire to attend Dalhousie Law School in Halifax in 1954 was not met with open arms from the dean, Horace E. Read, who told her, “Madam, we have no room here for dilettantes. Why don’t you just go home and take up crocheting?” She persevered,...

U.S. Supreme Court prohibits communists from teaching in New York schools. At the height of the “red scare” in the United States, a number of laws were passed to prevent anyone with communist sympathies from working in the public service. In the state of New York, the Feinberg Law prohibited people who’d called for a government overthrow to teach. Designed to catch Communist Party members, the law enabled school boards to fire a number of teachers for their political beliefs. But when a group...

Britain allows former Chilean dictator Pinochet to go home without trial for human rights abuses. In June 1973, Chilean President Salvador Allende appointed General Augusto Pinochet as the country’s commander-in-chief. It was a fateful decision. Just months later, Pinochet seized control of the democratically elected government and Allende was murdered in a military coup. In Pinochet’s subsequent bid to rid the country of left-leaning dissidents, he had thousands of Chileans tortured and...

Holocaust-denier Ernst Zundel deported from Canada to prison in Germany. When Ernst Zundel turned 19 in 1958, he moved to Canada to avoid Germany’s military conscription. He married in 1960 and had two sons. While professionally a graphic artist and printer, he published racist and anti-Semitic views under the pseudonym Christof Friendrich. He became involved in politics and at the federal level actually became a candidate for the leadership of the Liberal Party of Canada in 1967 (Pierre...

European protests prompt resignation of right-wing Austrian leader Joerg Haider from coalition government. Austria’s history is full of far-right political movements, notably the willingness of many Austrians to join Hitler’s Germany prior to World War II. Even after the war, however, the far-right commanded popular support. The country elected former United Nations Secretary General Kurt Waldheim as president in 1986 despite his well-known involvement as First Lieutenant in the German Army...

American Natives Occupy Wounded Knee, South Dakota for 71 days. In 1968, a number of native Americans in Minneapolis, Minnesota created the American Indian Movement (AIM), whose focus was to improve the lives of urban Indians and native Americans’ relations with the federal government generally. AIM members brought attention to their grievances by occupying offices, sponsoring a high-profile road excursion called Trail of Broken Treaties and confronting authorities. At the Pine Ridge Indian...

Canada evacuates Japanese Canadians from the West Coast. The moment Japanese pilots bombed Pearl Harbour on December 7, 1941, the Canadian government stepped up actions against Canadians of Japanese descent. At first Japanese Canadians were ordered to register with the government, but on August 12, 1941 they were required to carry photo registration cards complete with thumbprint. The paranoia and prejudice continued to escalate with Privy Council Order 1486 giving the government the right to...

Canada’s first woman war artist, Molly Lamb Bobak, is born. Molly Bobak was born Molly Lamb on February 25, 1922 in Vancouver, British Columbia. The daughter of a geologist and an art critic and amateur photographer, Bobak futhered her natural artistic abilities at the Vancouver School of Art between 1938 and 1941. In late 1942, she enlisted as a draughtsman in the Canadian Women Army Corps (CWAC), where her work in using art to record the CWAC’s activities soon won her a promotion to...

Ujjal Dosanjh is Canada’s first Indo Canadian to be named premier. Ujjal Dosanjh was born in India in 1947, then moved to England before settling in Canada in 1968. In British Columbia, he earned a BA from Simon Fraser University and a law degree from the University of British Columbia before setting up his own law practice in Vancouver. He got involved with human rights work through the Civil Liberties Association, multicultural support organizations and the Farm Workers' Union. Although a...

Agnes Macphail becomes first woman sworn in to the Ontario legislature. Agnes Macphail was born in Proton Township, Ontario on March 24, 1890. As a teacher in rural Ontario schools, she joined the United Farm Women of Ontario, attended meetings of the United Farmers Ontario, wrote articles for the Farmers’ Sun and discovered a bent for politics. Her activism was timely in that women had just been granted the federal vote (1918) and the ability to run for federal office (1919). This...

but title. When Indonesia won independence from the Dutch, Achmed Sukarno became the country’s first president in 1945. Twenty years later, when Indonesian communists tried to overthrow the president and his government, the Army’s chief of staff, General Mohamed Suharto, suppressed the coup. From then on, Suharto took ever more control of government operations until on February 22, 1967, President Sukarno relinquished all executive powers to Suharto, saving only his title. Once “elected”...

American black leader Malcolm X assassinated. Malcolm Little was born on May 19, 1925 in Omaha, Nebraska, one of eight children. After years of family tragedy and a troubled youth, Malcolm found himself in prison, where he proceeded to educate himself. His reading influenced him to begin following the Nation of Islam’s (NOI) leader Elijah Muhammad. By the time Malcolm left prison in 1952, he was a devoted Muslim and member of the NOI who’d discarded what he called his “slave” name for the...

Canada’s first Jewish legislator, Ezekiel Hart, is denied his seat. Imagine gaining a seat in which you are never allowed to sit. Ezekiel Hart, Canada’s first Jewish legislator, encountered precisely that situation. Born on May 15, 1770 in Trois-Rivières, Quebec, Hart studied in the United States before returning to Canada and launching numerous successful business ventures with his father and brothers. When he turned his hand to politics, he was swiftly elected to a seat in the legislative...

First university for rural women opened by “domestic science” advocate Adelaide Hoodless. When one of her four sons died at 18 months from drinking impure milk, a young Ontario mother named Adelaide Hunter became an advocate for pasteurizing milk. For Hunter, who was born near St. George in 1857 and married John Hoodless in 1881, this grew into a campaign to educate women about child-rearing and household management. Hoodless’ passion for “domestic science” led her to other significant...

Joseph McCarthy’s search for “Army communists” begins his downfall. Wisconsin Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy was infamous for seeking out and destroying the lives of supposed “communist sympathizers.” While the House of Representatives’ Un-American Activities committee had inflicted damage to the reputations of many people shortly after World War II, McCarthy took it to new heights. He was quick to accuse anyone who’d supported Roosevelt’s New Deal, especially Democrats, of being...

Kuwaiti women demand the right to vote. Formal attempts to grant Kuwaiti women the vote began in 1971, following a conference on women’s issues. That bill to the legislative assembly failed as did other bills introduced in 1981, 1986, 1992 and 1996. A coalition of 22 non-governmental organizations made up the Women’s Issues Network, a group that organized various campaigns to put pressure on the government. After years of failed attempts, coalition members gathered by the hundreds on...

Fidel Castro sworn in as Cuba’s prime minister, becomes country's youngest leader. In 1951, Cubans were denied democratic elections when right-wing dictator General Fulgencio Batista seized power. Three years later, on July 26, 1953, Fidel Castro – who had sought office in the 1951 election – led an attack on the Cuban government. Unfortunately for Castro, more than half his men were either captured or killed, and he was sentenced to 15 years in prison for conspiring to overthrow the...

Cairine Wilson is sworn in as Canada’s first woman senator. In October 1929, Canada paved the way for women to enter real politics. It came about because Canada’s “Famous Five” women (Emily Murphy, Henrietta Muir Edwards, Nellie McClung, Louise McKinney and Irene Parlby) won the “Persons Case” before the British Privy Council of the House of Lords. This allowed women to be considered “persons” for appointment to the bench and Senate, as per Canada’s constitution. Less than five months later,...

Iranian Muslim leader Ayatollah Khomeini issues death threat against British author Salman Rushdie. British author Salman Rushdie published his book Satanic Verses in September 1988, to critical acclaim and sales of more than 100,000 within a few months. It didn’t take long, however, for Iran’s spiritual leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, to take revenge on the Bombay-born author of the controversial satirical novel, which Khomeini felt cast the Muslim faith in a less than flattering light. On...

Dissident Nobel writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn expelled from USSR. Alexander Solzhenitsyn was born in Kislovodsk, Russia on December 11, 1918. There, he pursued a university education in physics and mathematics, even though his real passion was writing. When Soviet authorities discovered his writing criticizing Joseph Stalin, he was imprisoned, first for eight years, then for another two. He used his prison time to write, and much to the dismay of the Soviet leadership, managed to publish his...

Anglican Church of Canada appoints first female bishop: Reverend Victoria Matthews. The Anglican church has allowed women priests since November 30, 1976. However, 1993 was a breakthrough year when Rev. Victoria Matthews became the first woman to be elected to the post of an Anglican bishop in Canada. The following year, on February 12, 1994, Matthews was consecrated as bishop at a service at St. Paul’s church in Toronto. Matthews was a distinguished choice. She’d graduated from Trinity...

British Conservative Party chooses Margaret Thatcher as leader. The British Conservative Party was not known for being the most progressive. However, on February 11, 1975 the Tories made what was considered great strides for the equality of the sexes by choosing their first woman leader, Margaret Thatcher. In Britain, party leaders are chosen by a vote of the members of Parliament and in 1975 the Conservatives were her Majesty’s Official Opposition party. Thatcher, who was known for showing...