On this day in ...... 1940, 22 years after Canadian women were granted the right to vote in federal elections, the women of Quebec were permitted to vote and run for office in provincial elections. The change in Quebec culminated efforts that had begun in 1927, when Idola Saint-Jean (above right) founded l'Alliance canadienne pour le vote des femmes du Québec, and 1928, when Thérèse Casgrain (below left) founded La Ligue des droits de la femme. The groups lobbied the province's premier; eventually he persuaded the
clergy to drop their opposition.... 1980, a top-secret mission aimed at freeing 52 persons whom Iranian militants had been holding hostage for months at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran failed. Eight soldiers were killed in the attempt. The hostages would not be released for another 9 months (prior post).
