Women’s History fun facts: April 2nd, 2015
1: Hedy Lamarr was both a 4os movie actress and an inventor who came up with an idea for a radio-controlled torpedo device to help in World War II.
2: Frances Perkins was the first female member of a President’s Cabinet (she was Secretary of Labor for FDR).
3: Women outnumber men in the United States.
4: In 2013, for every dollar men earned in the US, women in the US only earned 78 cents.
5: Everybody remembers Paul Revere’s midnight ride to warn of British soldiers, but Sybil Luddington’s ride was twice the distance of Paul’s ride, and warned the troops of an attack on the city of Danbury, Connecticut.
6: Josephine Baker worked in France during World War II as a singer, dancer, actress, and spy. She helped get messages to the French military, using tricks like hiding the messages inside her dress, or writing them in invisible ink on her sheet music.
7: In 1756, Lydia Chapin Taft became the first woman to legally vote with the consent of the electorate.