April Women's History Highlights and Birthdays

April 2, 1931 - 17-year-old Jackie Mitchell, the second woman to playbaseball in the all-male minor leagues, pitches an exhibition gameagainst NY Yankees and strikes out both Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig. Thenext day, the Baseball Commissioner voided her contract, claimingbaseball was too strenuous for women. The ban was not overturned until1992 . 

April 5, 1911 - 100,000 to 500,000 people march in New York City toattend the funeral of 7 unidentified people who died in the TriangleShirtwaist Company fire in late March.

April 7, 1805 - Sacagawea begins helping the Lewis and Clark Expeditionas an interpreter. 

April 7, 1987 - Opening of the National Museum of Women in the Arts inWashington, DC, the first museum devoted to women artists. 

April 9, 1939 - Marian Anderson sings an Easter Sunday concert for morethan 75,000 at Lincoln Memorial. 

April 13, 1933 - Ruth Bryan Owens is the first woman to represent theU.S. as a foreign minister when she is appointed as envoy to Denmark. 

April 19, 1977 - 15 women in the House of Representatives form theCongressional Caucus for Women's Issues. 

April 22, - Earth Day - honor Rachel Carson today, a woman who changedAmerica and greatly influenced the environmental movement. 

April 26, 1777 - American Revolution heroine Sybil Ludington, 16 yearsold, rides 40 miles by horseback in the middle of the night to warn theAmerican militia that the British were invading. 

April 28, 1993 - First "Take Our Daughters to Work" Day, sponsored bythe Ms. Foundation; in 2003 it became "Take Our Daughters and Sons toWork" Day. 

April BirthdaysApril 3, 1934 - Jane Goodall, primatologist and conservationist; world'sforemost authority on chimpanzees 

April 4, 1928 - Maya Angelou, author, poet, civil rights activist,actress; composed and read her poem at President Clinton's inaugurationin 1993 

April 7, 1944 (2002) - Julia Miller Phillips, film producer; first womanto win a Best Picture Academy Award (1973, "The Sting") as a producer;also produced "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" and "Taxi Driver" 

April 9, 1887 (1953) - Florence Price, first African American womansymphony composer 

April 10, 1880 or 1882 (1965) - Frances Perkins, first woman cabinetmember, Secretary of Labor in 1933; key contributor to the SocialSecurity Act and the Fair Labor Standards Act 

April 10, 1903 (1987) - Clare Booth Luce, playwright, Congresswoman(R-CT), Ambassador to Italy (1953-1956) 

April 10, 1930 - Delores Huerta, Chicana activist; co-founder UnitedFarm Workers union 

April 13, 1909 (2001) - Eudora Welty, writer, won Pulitzer prize forFiction in 1973; photographer; winner of Presidential Medal of Freedom,the National Medal of Literature, and the French Legion d'Honneur 

April 14, 1866 (1936) - Anne Sullivan Macy, famous teacher of HelenKeller who was blind, deaf, and mute; the two worked and traveledtogether 

April 25, 1917 (1996) - Ella Fitzgerald, "First Lady of Song",internationally renowned jazz singer, winner of 13 Grammy Awards 

April 27, 1927 (2006) - Coretta Scott King, civil rights, human rights,and peace activist 

April 30, 1939 - Ellen Zwilich, first woman to win a Pulitzer Prize forMusic (1983)