This Day…

1860 – Phoebe Ann Moses, better known as Annie Oakley is born.

Born this day in 1902 – Norma Shearer, Canadian actress, known for playing sexually liberated women in the pre-code era of cinema, recipient of the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in The Divorcee (d. 1983)

1896 – Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, American author, known for novels with rural themes, recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for her novel The Yearling which was later made into a movie is born. (d. 1953)

1876 – Born this day, Mary Ritter Beard, American historian, archivist, suffragist and activist, advocate of social justice in labor and women’s rights; author of a number of books including On Understanding Women, America Through Women’s Eyes, and Woman As Force In History: A Study in Traditions and Realities. (d. 1958)

1984: Mary Lou Retton became the first US woman to win an Olympic gold medal in women’s gymnastics all-around event.

1903: Calamity Jane, sharpshooter and frontierswoman, died in poverty in Deadwood.

July 27, 1891 (1980) – Myrtle Lawrence, sharecropper and labor organizer, worked within biracial Southern Tenant Farmers’ Union from 1936 to 1943, honored on the 1976 Bicentennial Freedom Train Exhibition was born.

Amelia Earhart noted aviation pioneer and author, first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic, first person to fly solo across the Pacific from Hawaii to the mainland was born on this day in 1897.

1918 – Cindy Walker, American singer-songwriter and dancer, known for many hits spanning almost 50 years, inductee into the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Texas Heritage Songwriters Hall of Fame (d. 2006)

1848 – The Seneca Falls Convention, the country’s first women’s rights convention, is held in Seneca Falls, New York Women’s Rights Movement