Quiz Monkey
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Quiz Monkey |
This is not, of course, the only page on this website that mentions women – and God forbid that anyone should think it is!
It's basically about the first women to do various things that were at one time or other exclusively male preserves.
I'm sorry if anyone sees this as ghettoisation – but this sort of question does come up quite regularly.
| First country to give women the vote (1893) |
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New Zealand |
| Women aged over 30 given the vote in the UK |
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1918 |
| 19th Amendment to the US Constitution gives votes to women |
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1920 |
| Women in the UK could vote over the age of 21 (same as men) |
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1928 |
| Women first sat in the House of Lords |
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1958 |
| Women gained the right to vote in Federal elections in 1971 (but in local elections at various times between 1959 and 1990) |
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Switzerland |
| Last European country to give women the vote (1984) |
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Liechtenstein |
| The first black woman MP (1987) |
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Diane Abbott | |
| The first female US Secretary of State (Clinton's second term, 1997–2001) |
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Madeleine Albright | |
| The first woman to qualify as a physician or surgeon in Britain (1865), and the first female member of the BMA (1873); also Britain's first woman mayor (Aldeburgh, 1908) |
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Elizabeth Garrett Anderson | |
| First woman to take her seat in Parliament (1919) |
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Nancy Astor | |
| The world's first female head of government (1960 – ten months after the assassination of her husband, who had been Prime Minister since 1956) |
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Sirimavo Bandaranaike | |
| The UK's first female foreign secretary (2006–7), and the second woman (after Thatcher) to hold one of the four 'great offices of state' |
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Margaret Beckett | |
| The first female professional author in English (according to Virginia Woolf); also worked as a spy against the Dutch for Charles II |
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Aphra Behn | |
| Wife and business partner of a famous automobile pioneer: made the first long–distance car journey, and reportedly became the first recorded woman driver, when she took their two teenage sons from Mannheim to Pforzheim – a distance of 106 km (66 miles) – to visit her mother, in 1888; it's said she wanted to prove to her perfectionist husband that their product should be marketed as a viable means of transport |
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Bertha Benz | |
| The first woman to qualify as a doctor in the USA (1849), and the first woman on the UK Medical Register (1859) |
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Elizabeth Blackwell | |
| Defeated Labour candidate for Thanet North in the 1983 general election |
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Cherie Booth | |
| First woman Cabinet minister (1929); first woman President of the TUC (1923) |
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Margaret Bondfield | |
| First woman Speaker of the House of Commons (1992–2000) |
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Betty Boothroyd | |
| Appointed MD of Birmingham City F.C., in 1993; became the youngest MD of a UK PLC in 1997, when the club was floated; became the first woman MD of an English top flight football club when they were promoted in 2002; became Vice Chairman of West Ham United in 2010 |
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Karren Brady | |
| First woman to take part in the Grand National (1987) |
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Charlotte Brew | |
| First woman to take part in the Boat Race (Oxford cox, 1981) |
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Sue Brown | |
| Appointed in 2023 as the first Lady Chief Justice (head of the English and Welsh judiciary? |
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Sue Carr | |
| Appointed in 2018 as the first female (Lady Usher of the) Black Rod |
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Sarah Clarke | |
| First woman Prime Minister of France (1991–2) |
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Edith Cresson | |
| First woman to win a Nobel prize (Physics, 1903); also the first person to win two (Chemistry, 1911); the first woman to lecture at the Sorbonne (1906) |
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Marie Curie | |
| First woman leader of a major Trade Union (SOGAT, 1984) |
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Brenda Dean | |
| First woman to qualify as a pilot (1909 – born Paris 1882) |
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Elise Deroche | |
| First female Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police (appointed in 2017) |
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Cressida Dick | |
| First woman Lord Mayor of London (1983–4) |
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Mary Donaldson |
| First woman to fly solo across the Atlantic (1932) |
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Amelia Earhart | |
| First woman to swim the English Channel (1926) |
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Gertrude Ederle | |
| Last woman hanged in Britain (1955 – for the murder of her lover David Blakely) |
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Ruth Ellis | |
| First woman to run for US Vice President (1984) |
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Geraldine Ferraro | |
| First woman to serve as US Vice President (1984) |
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Kamala Harris (2021–5) | |
| First woman to be Chief Cashier of the Bank of England (1999–2003) |
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Merlyn Lowther | |
| First woman to read the news on British television (ITN, 1955) |
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Barbara Mandell | |
| First woman elected to the British House of Commons (1918) |
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Countess Markievicz |
| First woman chancellor of Germany (2005) |
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Angela Merkel | |
| First woman to join the Red Arrows display team (2010) |
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Flt. Lt. Kirsty Moore | |
| First woman to conduct a marriage in the Church of England (York, 1987) |
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Sylvia Mutch | |
| First woman to be awarded the Order of Merit (1907) |
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Florence Nightingale | |
| First woman (other than the Queen) to be depicted on a Bank of England banknote | |||
| First woman speaker of the US House of Representatives (2007–11, re–elected in 2019) |
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Nancy Pelosi | |
| The world's first woman President (1974) |
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Isabel Peron | |
| First woman to train a Grand National winner (Corbiere, 1983; also trained Royal Athlete, the 1995 winner) |
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Jenny Pitman | |
| First woman to fly solo across the English Channel (1912) |
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Harriet Quimby | |
| First woman jockey to complete the Grand National (1982) |
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Geraldine Rees | |
| The USA's first woman astronaut (1983), and the youngest American astronaut in space (aged 32) |
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Sally Ride | |
| First female head of MI5 (Director General, 1992–6) |
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Stella Rimington | |
| The first regular female presenter of the News on BBC television (Nine O'Clock News, 1975; see Barbara Mandell, Nan Winton) |
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Angela Rippon | |
| First woman President of Ireland (1990–7) |
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Mary Robinson | |
| Socialist nominee in the 2007 French presidential election: the first female presidential nominee of a major French political party (lost to Sarkozy) |
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Marie–Segolene Royal | |
| First woman prime minister of New Zealand (1997–9) |
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Jenny Shipley | |
| First woman to climb Everest (1975) |
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Junko Tabei | |
| First woman in space (1963) |
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Valentina Tereshkova | |
| First woman to officiate in a Premiership game, 1997 (as referee's assistant) |
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Wendy Toms | |
| First woman to play Doctor Who (in the 2017 Christmas special, and in her own series in 2018) |
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Jodie Whittaker | |
| First woman to read the news on BBC television (1960 – see Barbara Mandell); died in 2019, aged 93 |
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Nan Winton | |
| First woman to stand for US President (Equal Rights Party, 1872) |
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Victoria Woodhull |
© Haydn Thompson 2017–24