May 4- Margaret Thatcher becomes Prime Minister

May 4 is the 124th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (125th in leap years). There are 241 days remaining.


From:

Wikipedia

Also occurring today in women's history:

1749 -Charlotte Turner Smith was born today and in 1764, married Benjamin Smith. Benjamin Smith was a heavy drinker, bad gambler, and overall a lousy husband. Charlotte and Ben proceeded to have twelve children. Ben was horrible with finances, and the task of providing for the Smith family fell upon Charlotte. She began writing, and eventually published numerous works between the years of 1784 and posthumously in 1807. She led a very harsh life, and was against arranged marriages. She attributed most of her misfortune to her marriage, likening herself to a slave. Charlotte Smith paved the way for many female authors who were to follow her, and helped to carve out the Gothic genre, an up and coming classification of novels. What child rearing meant to Charlotte Smith is a total devotion to her children. She was the sole bread winner, and continued to support them after they were married with children of their own.

Source: http://www.litgothic.com/Authors/csmith.html



Charlotte Turner Smith

1820 - Julia Gardiner Tyler was born today. She married U.S. President John Tyler and �reigned� as First Lade for the last 8 months of her husband�s term (they married on June 24th, 1844). The marriage was met with publicity and some criticism due to their age difference of 30 years.

Source:
http://clinton4.nara.gov/WH/glimpse/firstladies/html/jt10.ht ml


Julia Gardiner Tyler

1884 - Agnes Fay Morgan was born. She was a nutritionist and a chemist. Ms. Morgan was awarded the prestigious Garvan Medal from the American Chemical Society in 1949 for her pioneering work in the field of nutrition. She attended Vassar College for a year and then transferred to the University of Chicago, receiving a B.S. degree in chemistry in 1904, followed by an M.S. degree in 1905. Morgan spent the next several years teaching and then returned to work with Dr. Julius Steiglitz for her Ph.D.

Source: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&d b=PubMed&list_uids=323069&dopt=Abstract

1898 - Joy Bright Hancock was born. She was an aviator and a naval officer. Joy Bright Hancock enlisted in the Navy as a Yeoman (F), serving at Camden, New Jersey and at the Naval Air Station, Cape May. Following the war, she married Lieutenant Charles Gray Little, who was killed in the crash of the airship ZR-2 in 1921. A year later, she obtained employment with the Bureau of Aeronautics, where her duties including editing the Bureau's "News Letter", which later evolved into the magazine "Naval Aviation News". In 1924, she left the Bureau to marry Lieutenant Commander Lewis Hancock, Jr., who lost his life when USS Shenandoah (ZR-1) crashed in September 1925.

Source: http://www.usna.edu/JBHO/jbh_biography.htm

1979 - Margaret Thatcher becomes Britain�s first woman Prime Minister as the Conservative Party wins the general election . Known as �The Iron Lady of British politics�, Margaret Thatcher was the longest continuously serving prime minister since 1827. Her conservative politics led to the implementation of such radically-conservative policies as the poll tax. The Falkland Islands war was fought during her tenure. When her party leadership was challenged in 1990, she resigned, later also retiring from the House of Commons.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Thatcher


Margaret Thatcher