On December 9

On this day in ...

... 1903 (105 years ago today), the parliament of France voted unanimously not to extend the vote to women. Just 6 days later the very same year, the Norwegian parliament would vote unanimously in favor of women's suffrage.

... 1906, Grace Brewster Murray was born in New York City. From an early age she demonstrated curiosity about how things worked -- took apart no fewer than 7 alarm clocks. Her parents inspired her to pursue her interest, and in 1928 she was graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Vassar College with a bachelor's degree in mathematics and physics. After earning a master's in math from Yale 2 years later, she married, began teaching math at Vassar, and earned her Ph.D. from Yale. Thirty-four years old when World War II broke out, Dr. Grace Murray Hopper (below left) enlisted in the U.S. Naval Reserve. She became a top Navy computer programmer, and is "credited with coining the term 'bug' in reference to a glitch in the machinery." At war's end, divorced and told to leave active duty, Hopper embarked on an illustrious career in computer programming -- among her achievements was development of the computer language COBOL. In the mid-1960s she became the 1st Naval Reserve woman to be recalled to active duty, achieving the rank of Rear Admiral in 1985. Upon her death in 1992 she was buried with full military honors at Arlington National Cemetery. In the late 1990s the destroyer above right, U.S.S. Hopper (DDG-70), nicknamed "Amazing Grace," was named after her. She's been nominated as the transnational foremother (now on our list at right) of oceans law expert and IntLawGrrls' loyal blogreader Caitlyn Antrim, who cites 2 favorite Hopper quotes:

'It's easier to ask forgiveness than it is to get permission.'

and

'A ship in a harbor is safe, but that is not what a ship is built for.'

On September 11

On this day in ...
... 1877, in Budapest, Rosika Schwimmer (left) was born. For years a leader of feminist and peace movements in Hungary and elsewhere in Europe, Schwimmer was living in London, "serving as International Press Secretary of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance and as correspondent of important European newspapers," when World War I broke out. She worked against the war with other women; among her close associates was Jane Addams. (Addams is the transnational foremother of IntLawGrrls guest Mary Ellen O'Connell, and guest Catherine Lanctot posted this past spring on antiwar efforts of other World War I women.) Schwimmer persuaded a U.S. auto magnate to charter an ocean liner and sail the eponymous Henry Ford Peace Expedition to Europe in late 1915-early 1916. She served as Minister to Switzerland -- making her Hungary's 1st woman ambassador -- after the war. But political turmoil in her home country soon prompted Schwimmer to seek refuge in the United States. There she became embroiled in the legal struggle depicted in the editorial cartoon at right,which ended when the Supreme Court rejected her bid for citizenship in United States v. Schwimmer (1929), on account of her refusal to take up arms in defense of the country. Schwimmer, whom ImmigrationProf Blog recently honored as immigrant of the day, died in New York in 1948. (photo credit; 1928 cartoon credit)
... 2003 (5 years ago today), the 2000 Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety entered into force. The protocol's intended to supplement the 1992 Convention on Biological Diversity (logo below left) by "seek[ing] to protect biological diversity from the potential risks posed by living modified organisms resulting from modern biotechnology. " The protocol has 147 states parties; the United States is not among them. Nor is it among the 191 states parties to the Convention itself.

On May 28

On this day in ...
... 1952, all adult women in Greece secured the right to vote in national elections; they would cast their 1st votes in parliamentary elections 4 years later. Though some women in Greece (flag at left) had been able to vote since 1934, suffrage had been limited to those who were literate and over 30 years of age.
... 1961, British attorney Peter Benenson published an essay entitled "The Forgotten Prisoners" in England's Observer. His account of prisoners of conscience -- in his words, "the several million people" who were "being imprisoned, tortured or executed because [their] opinions or religion are unacceptable to [their] government" -- led to the launching in Belgium next year of the nongovernmental organization Amnesty International.

On September 6, ...

...1974, in Zambia, leaders of Portugal and of the liberation front known as FRELIMO signed a treaty known as the Lusaka Agreement establishing Mozambique as an independent nation-state, and so ending more than 400 years of Portuguese colonial rule. This week Forbes magazine named Mozambican Prime Minister Luisa Diogo the 89th most powerful woman in the world.
... 1860, Jane Addams was born in Cedarville, Illinois, the 8th of 9 children in a family "with Quaker roots" who counted among its friends President Abraham Lincoln, who'd served in the Illinois Senate with Addams' father. "Lincoln's creed of the equality of men became Miss Addams's ideal as a child," the New York Times wrote on the occasion of her death in 1935. It must be supposed that a contemporary reporter would insert "and women" after "men," given this passage from her 1931 Nobel Peace Prize biography:

Jane Addams was an ardent feminist by philosophy. In those days before women's suffrage she believed that women should make their voices heard in legislation and therefore should have the right to vote, but more comprehensively, she thought that women should generate aspirations and search out opportunities to realize them.

The opportunity that she seized was founding of Hull-House, a "settlement house" where Chicago's poor were given access to health care, job leads, education, exercise, and the arts. Over time Addams became active in civic and pacifist movements at home and abroad. She spoke at the 1913 ceremony opening the Peace Palace at The Hague, for instance, and served as President of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom established there 2 years later. Because of her opposition to World War I, the Daughters of the American Revolution expelled Addams from its ranks. Addams' memoir Twenty Years at Hull-House (1910) is an inspiration. (photo of Addams, holding a peace banner at right, with a flag-holding woman believed to be Mary McDowell, courtesy of Library of Congress.)

On June 23, ...

... 1888, at the Republican National Convention in Chicago, Frederick Douglass (right), the abolitionist and women's suffragist who had escaped slavery in 1838 and written and spoken out about his experiences ever since, became the 1st American of African ancestry proposed for nomination as President of the United States. Benjamin Harrison would win the GOP nomination 2 days later; soon after his election, Harrison named Douglass U.S. minister to Haiti. (For an excellent analysis of Douglass' transformative midcentury journey to famine-struck Ireland, see Peter D. O'Neill, “Frederick Douglass and the Irish,” 5 Foilsiú 57 (2006) (available here).
... 1894, the International Olympic Committee, an international, nonprofit, nongovernmental organization, was founded as a means to revive the famed athletic games of ancient Greece.