On this day in ...... 1893 (115 years ago today), Fatima Jinnah was born in Karachi, in what was then British India and is now Pakistan. Raised by her older brother after her father's death when she was a child, Jinnah was educated at Dr Ahmad Dental College, and in 1923 she opened her own dental clinic in Calcutta, "at a time when taking up a profession was considered inappropriate for girls from Muslim families." Eventually she gave up her practice to care for her extended family. She accompanied her brother, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, "the leader of Muslim India" and 1st leader of independent Pakistan, on official visits; she told his story in her posthumously published book, My Brother (1987). In 1941 she helped form the All India Muslim Women Students Federation. In 1965, she ran unsuccessfully for President of Pakistan. Jinnah, who died 2 years later in the city of her birth, was honored on the stamp at above left in 2003.
... 1942, half a year after the United States entered World War II, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed into law the Navy Women's Reserve Act, establishing the WAVES -- Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service -- as a women's auxiliary agencyfor the U.S. Navy. "By the end of the war, over 84,000 women served in WAVES with 8,000 female officers, which constituted 2.5% of the US Navy's personnel strength."
