December 18, 1966: The Honor of Franca Viola

December 18, 1966: Franca Viola wins a court case. In so doing, she wins honor -- not just for herself, but for millions of women in her country.

She was born on January 9, 1948 in Alcamo, a rural town on the Italian island of Sicily. In such places, old traditions died hard. At 15, became engaged to Filippo Melodia, the 23-year-old nephew of a local Mafia figure. He was soon arrested for theft, and her father demanded she break off the engagement. She did. He fled to Germany.

In 1965, at 17, Viola was engaged to another man, and Melodia had returned to Alcamo, and was trying unsuccessfully to re-enter her life, stalking her and threatening both her father and boyfriend.

In the early hours of December 26, 1965, Melodia and a group of 12 armed companions broke into the Viola home, and kidnapped Franca by dragging her into a car, in the process beating up Viola's mother, and also taking Franca's 8-year-old brother Mariano, who refused to let go of his sister.

Mariano was released a few hours later, but Franca was held for 8 days in the home of Melodia's sister and her husband, a farmhouse on the outskirts of the town, where she was repeatedly raped. Melodia told her that, now, she would be forced to marry him, so as not to become a "dishonored" woman -- honor being something Mafia figures have always claimed to value.

She told him she had no intention of marrying him and, moreover, that she would have him sued for kidnapping and rape. So he decided to do what, in his mind, constituted "going over her heard": On December 31, Melodia contacted Viola's father Bernardo for the paciata (Sicilian for 'appeasement', striking a deal between the families of the man and woman who "eloped").

In Italian law, if a woman married her rapist, the crime was expunged from the record: It was known as matrimonio riparatore: A "rehabilitating marriage." In Italian culture, if a woman refused her husband, or if she refused her father's setup of a marriage, it was considered dishonorable. For all Italy's experimentation in art, music and (especially in the 1960s) film, it was then, and remains today, a rather conservative country.

Bernardo pretended to negotiate with the kidnappers, saying he agreed and consented to the marriage, while collaborating with the Carabinieri (Italy's national police) in preparing a rescue. Viola was freed and her kidnappers arrested on January 2, 1966, 7 days before her 18th birthday. She said her father asked her if she really wanted to marry Melodia. When she said she did not, he told her he would do everything possible to help her.

After Viola's refusal to marry the man who raped her, her family members were reportedly menaced, ostracised, and persecuted by most townspeople. Their vineyard and barn were torched. These events, and the eventual trial, resonated powerfully with the Italian media and public.

Melodia's lawyers claimed Viola had consented to an elopement, fleeing voluntarily to get married secretly, rather than being kidnapped. A jury refused to accept this, and, on December 18, 1966, found Melodia guilty. He was sentenced to 11 years in prison, later reduced to 10 years. Five of his friends were acquitted, and the others received relatively mild sentences.

Melodia was released from prison in 1976, and was killed on April 13, 1978, in a Mafia-style execution before he could return to Sicily.

In Italy, the article of law whereby a rapist could vacate his crime by marrying his victim was not abolished until 1981. And sexual violence became a crime against the person, instead of against "public morality," only in 1996.

In December 1968, shortly before turning 21, Franca Viola married the man she loved, Giuseppe Ruisi. The President of Italy (head of state, not head of government), Giuseppe Saragat, sent the couple a wedding gift. Pope Paul VI received them in a private audience soon after the wedding. They had two sons and one daughter. In 2014, President Giorgio Napolitano awarded her the title of Grande Ufficiale dell'Ordine al Merito della Repubblica (Grand Officer of the Order of Merit of the Republic), one of Italy's highest honors. As of December 18, 2022, Franca and Giuseppe, and their children, still live in Alcamo.

Franca Viola's story has been fictionalized in film, in 1970 with The Most Beautiful Wife, starring Ornella Muti; and in 2022 with The Girl from Tomorrow, starring Claudia Gusmano.

*

December 18, 1966 was a Sunday. Elsewhere in Italy, future soccer star Gianluca Pagliuca was born.

This was the last week of the regular season in the NFL, and these games were played:

* The New York Giants lost to the Dallas Cowboys, 17-7 at Yankee Stadium.

* The Philadelphia Eagles beat the Washington Redskins, 37-28 at District of Columbia Stadium (later renamed Robert F. Kennedy Stadium).

* The Pittsburgh Steelers beat the Atlanta Falcons, 57-33 at Atlanta Stadium (later renamed Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium).

* The Chicago Bears beat the Minnesota Vikings, 41-28 at Wrigley Field in Chicago.

* The Cleveland Browns beat the football version of the St. Louis Cardinals, 38-10 at Busch Memorial Stadium in St. Louis.

* The Green Bay Packers beat the Los Angeles Rams, 27-23 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

* The Baltimore Colts beat the San Francisco 49ers, 30-14 at Kezar Stadium in San Francisco.

* And, with an odd number of teams in the NFL that season, each week had one team with the week off. This week, it was the Detroit Lions.

There were 3 games in the American Football League:

* The expansion Miami Dolphins beat the Houston Oilers, 29-28 at the Orange Bowl in Miami.

* The Buffalo Bills beat the Denver Broncos, 38-21 at War Memorial Stadium in Buffalo.

* And the Kansas City Chiefs beat the San Diego Chargers, 27-17 at Balboa Stadium in San Diego. This was the last game the Chargers played there: The next season, they moved into the new San Diego Stadium, which was renamed Jack Murphy Stadium in 1981 and Qualcomm Stadium in 1997. They played there until 2016, moving back to their original city, Los Angeles.

Baseball was out of season. There were 2 games in the NBA. The Cincinnati Royals beat the Baltimore Bullets, 138-114 at the Cincinnati Gardens. And the Los Angeles Lakers beat the Boston Celtics, 127-125 at the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena. Jerry West scored 35 points.

And in the last season of the NHL's "Original Six Era," all of the not-so-original 6 teams were in action:

* The New York Rangers lost to the Detroit Red Wings, 5-0 at the Olympia Stadium in Detroit.

* The Boston Bruins beat the Montreal Canadiens, 3-1 at the Boston Garden.

* And the Chicago Black Hawks beat the Toronto Maple Leafs, 3-1 at the Chicago Stadium.

December 1, 1971: Ms. Magazine Debuts

December 1, 1971: The 1st issue of Ms. magazine hits newsstands. Although it was probably a coincidence, it was with some appropriateness that it debuted on the anniversary of the 1st issue of Playboy doing so.

Ms. was launched as a “one-shot” sample insert in New York magazine, founded by co-editors Gloria Steinem, Letty Cottin Pogrebin, Mary Thom, Patricia Carbine, Joanne Edgar, Nina Finkelstein, Dorothy Pitman Hughes, Margaret Sloane-Hunter, Patrician Derian and Mary Peacock. Steinem is the only one of these whose name will be familiar to most Americans, as she came to be seen as the leader of the so-called Second Wave of American Feminism.

The magazine's title referred to women not wanting to be defined by being married (with the prefix "Mrs.") or not (with the prefix "Miss"). The premiere cover showed a woman with 8 arms, like the Hindu goddess Kali. And in her 8 hands, she holds a telephone receiver, a mirror, a car's steering wheel, an iron, a clock, a broom, a pan in which an egg is frying, and with the other hand, she's typing. She's crying, she's pregnant, and she's wearing high heels.

According to the magazine's website:

Ms. was a brazen act of independence in the 1970s. At the time, the fledgling feminist movement was either denigrated or dismissed in the so-called mainstream media. Most magazines marketed to women were limited to advice about finding a husband, saving marriages, raising babies or using the right cosmetics.

When the Ms. preview issue debuted -- carrying articles on the housewife’s moment of truth, “de-sexing” the English language and abortion -- the syndicated columnist James J. Kilpatrick jeered that it was a “C-sharp on an un-tuned piano,” a note “of petulance, of bitchiness, or nervous fingernails screeching across a blackboard.” And after the first regular issue hit the newsstands in July 1972, the network news anchor Harry Reasoner challenged, “I’ll give it six months before they run out of things to say.” (To his credit, Reasoner ended up apologizing years later.)

But Ms. struck a chord with women. Its 300,000 “one-shot” test copies sold out nationwide in eight days. It generated an astonishing 26,000 subscription orders and over 20,000 reader letters within weeks. By the time Ms. celebrated its 15th anniversary in 1987, media soothsayers had all been pressed to change their tune.

Ms. was the first U.S. magazine to feature prominent American women demanding the repeal of laws that criminalized abortion, the first to explain and advocate for the Equal Rights Amendment, to rate presidential candidates on women’s issues, to put domestic violence and sexual harassment on its cover, to commission and feature a national study on date rape and to blow the whistle on the undue influence of advertising on magazine journalism.

In short, Ms. was the first national magazine to make feminist voices audible, feminist journalism tenable and a feminist worldview available to the public.

Of the 10 founders: Margaret Sloan-Hunter passed away in 2004, Mary Thom in 2013, and Patricia Derian in 2016; while, as of December 1, 2022, Gloria Steinem, Letty Cottin Pogrebin, Pat Carbine, Joanne Edgar, Nina Finkelstein, Dorothy Pitman Hughes and Mary Peacock are still alive. (UPDATE: Unbeknownst to me when I posted this, Dorothy Pitman Hughes died on December 1, 2022.)

*

December 1, 1971 was a Wednesday. Baseball was out of season. Football was in midweek. There were 6 games played in the NBA:

* The Los Angeles Lakers beat the Boston Celtics, 124-111 at the Boston Garden. Jerry West scored 45 points. Gail Goodrich scored 33. Wilt Chamberlain scored only 8 points, but had 20 rebounds.

* The Philadelphia 76ers beat the Seattle SuperSonics, 102-98 at The Spectrum in Philadelphia. Spencer Haywood scored 36 points in defeat.

* The Cleveland Cavaliers beat the Houston Rockets, 116-106 at the Cleveland Arena.

* The Chicago Bulls beat the Cincinnati Royals, 109-101 at the Cincinnati Gardens. Nate "Tiny" Archibald scored 42 points.

* The Atlanta Falcons beat the Detroit Red Wings, 117-103 at Cobo Hall (now Huntington Place) in Detroit.

* And the Phoenix Suns beat the Portland Trail Blazers, 139-103 at the Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum.

There were 2 games in the American Basketball Association. The Carolina Cougars beat the Pittsburgh Condors, 118-117 at the Greensboro Coliseum in Greensboro, North Carolina. John Brisker scored 42 points. And the Miami Floridians beat the Dallas Chaparrals, 107-106 in overtime at the Moody Coliseum in Dallas.

There were 5 games played in the NHL:

* The New York Rangers beat the Buffalo Sabres, 7-2 at Madison Square Garden. The "GAG Line," meaning Goal-A-Game, scored as follows: Rod Gilbert, 2 goals; Jean Ratelle and Vic Hadfield, 1 goal each; and each of them had 2 assists.

* The Montreal Canadiens beat the Los Angeles Kings, 5-3 at the Montreal Forum.

* The Toronto Maple Leafs beat the St. Louis Blues, 4-2 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto.

* The Pittsburgh Penguins beat the Detroit Red Wings, 4-2 at the Civic Arena in Pittsburgh.

* The Minnesota North Stars beat the California Golden Seals, 4-1 at the Metropolitan Sports Center in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota.

* The Boston Bruins, the Chicago Black Hawks, the Philadelphia Flyers and the Vancouver Canucks were not scheduled.

November 13, 2020: Kim Ng Becomes the 1st Female GM In American Sports

November 13, 2020: Kim Ng is named the general manager of Major League Baseball's Miami Marlins. She is the 1st woman to be named GM of any team in North American major league sports. She is also the 1st person of Asian descent to hold such a post.

Despite her surname, pronounced "eng," she is not of Vietnamese ethnicity. The daughter of a Cantonese-American financial analyst and a Thai Chinese banker, she was born in 1968 in Indianapolis, but grew up in Queens, New York City. Her father was a sports nut, and she played softball and tennis at Ridgewood High School in Queens (not the one in nearby Ridgewood, Bergen County, New Jersey). She continued played softball at the University of Chicago, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts in public policy.

She stayed in Chicago to get her first front-office job, as assistant director of baseball operations for the Chicago White Sox, working under GM Ron Scheuler, who had also pitched for the White Sox. In 1995, she became the 1st woman, and the youngest person, to present a salary arbitration case, against pitcher Alex Fernandez. She won.

That got the attention of not just the other 29 MLB organizations, but of the MLB offices, who are about holding down player salaries first, and protecting and promoting the sport second. In 1997, the American League hired her away from the White Sox, appointing her Director of Waivers and Records, meaning she had to decide whether to approve any transaction.

In 1998, Bob Watson left his post as GM of the New York Yankees, and his assistant, Brian Cashman, was promoted into that post. He offered Ng his former assistant's job. She held it through 2001, receiving 3 World Series rings. She was hired as assistant GM by the Los Angeles Dodgers, and held that post through the 2010 season. She then took a job as senior vice president of baseball operations for MLB, reporting to the president of baseball operations, former Yankee and Dodger manager Joe Torre.

It was working for Torre that led to her getting hired by the Marlins, because, at the time, the Marlins' CEO was former Yankee Derek Jeter. Jeter and the group he was with ended up selling the Marlins in 2022, but Ng has stayed, and is now responsible for one of the franchise's periodic rebuilding efforts.

She is married to Tony Markwand, who runs a winery in Oregon. She has no children.

UPDATE: The Marlins made the Playoffs in the 2023 season, but Ng resigned at the end of it, anyway, citing differences with how the rest of team management wanted to proceed. She became the Commissioner of Athletes Unlimited Pro Softball, the 1st serious attempt at a women's professional softball league.

*

November 13, 2020 was a Friday -- a Friday the 13th. Certainly, it wasn't unlucky for Kim Ng. Baseball season was over. And, due to COVID restrictions having postponed the 2020 Playoffs in each league, the 2020-21 NBA and NHL seasons hadn't started yet.

There were 3 college football games played, including one with a Top 10 team, an intra-metro area rivalry, and a major trophy rivalry:

* The University of Cincinnati, then ranked Number 7, beat East Carolina, 55-17 at Nippert Stadium in Cincinnati.

* Florida Atlantic, based in Boca Raton, beat Florida International, 38-19 at Riccardo Silva Stadium in Miami. This rivalry is known as the Shula Bowl, complete with a trophy named the Don Shula Award, because both schools, relatively new to college football at the top level, had ties to Shula, the longtime Miami Dolphins head coach. FAU's 1st head coach, Howard Schnellenberger, who coached the University of Miami to the 1983 National Championship, was an assistant coach to Shula on the Super Bowl VII and VIII winners. And FIU's 1st head coach, Don Strock, was a backup quarterback for Shula's Dolphins a few years later.

* And Iowa beat Minnesota, 35-7 at TCF Bank Stadium (now Huntington Bank Stadium) in Minneapolis, for the bronze pig trophy known as Floyd of Rosedale.

November 4, 1924: The 1st Woman Elected Governor

November 4, 1924: Nellie Tayloe Ross is elected Governor of Wyoming. She is the 1st woman to be elected Governor of any State. It is with some appropriateness that the 1st State to elect a female Governor was Wyoming: When it was established as a Territory in 1869, it gave women the right to vote; and, when it gained Statehood in 1890, it was the 1st State to grant that right.

Nellie Davis Tayloe was born on November 29, 1876 in St. Joseph, Missouri, and grew up in Miltonvale, Kansas. She became a kindergarten teacher, and married William B. Ross in 1902.

William Ross was elected Governor of Wyoming in 1922, but died on October 2, 1924, from complications from an appendectomy. Under the State Constitution, the new Governor was the State's Secretary of State, Frank Lucas -- a Republican, so the Democrats had lost the office.

Also under the State Constitution, a special election had to be held to fill the post of a Governor who did not complete his term. Officials in the State's Democratic Party had a better chance of keeping the Governorship if Mrs. Ross were the nominee than if anyone else was, since she would get a sympathy vote, and a pro-Prohibition vote, that would more than cancel out any vote against her because of her gender.

She was reluctant to accept the nomination, but after all the other suggested candidates dropped out of the race, she was unanimously nominated by a State Party convention. Moved by this gesture, she accepted. Lucas himself lost the nomination at the Republican Convention, to former State Representative Eugene J. Sullivan. In the general election, despite a national landslide for President Calvin Coolidge, which also gave the Republicans control of both houses of Congress (I have a separate entry for that event), Mrs. Ross got 55 percent of the vote, becoming the 1st woman ever to be elected Governor of any State.

She was inaugurated on January 5, 1925. However, times were changing, and one of the changes is that America, having ratified the 18th Amendment for the Prohibition of buying, holding, transporting and selling alcoholic beverages, had now turned against the idea, going from "dry" to "wet." Mrs. Ross still supported Prohibition. When she ran for re-election in 1926, she lost to former State Engineer Frank Emerson, by only 1,365 votes.

She was only 50 years old, so her political career was not necessarily over. She remained active in the State's Democratic Party. In 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed her Director of the United States Mint, the 1st woman to hold that office. She served in that office for the entirety of the FDR and Harry Truman Administrations, 20 years. She later wrote for women's magazines.

On November 5, 1974, Ella Grasso of Connecticut, a Democrat, became the 1st woman elected Governor of any State without her husband having previously been Governor, as had been the case with Mrs. Ross, Miriam "Ma" Ferguson of Texas, and Lurleen Wallace of Alabama. She was inaugurated on January 8, 1975. Nellie Tayloe Ross lived to see this, living until December 19, 1977, at the age of 101.

Each State's 1st female Governor -- if any -- and her year of assuming the office:

1. 1925, Wyoming: Nellie Tayloe Ross

2. 1925, Texas: Miriam "Ma" Ferguson (In 1990, Ann Richards became the 1st non-wife elected Governor.)

3. 1967, Alabama: Lurleen Wallace (In 2017, Kay Ivey became Acting Governor, and was elected in her own right in 2018.)

4. 1975, Connecticut: Ella Grasso

5. 1977, Washington: Dixy Lee Ray

6. 1982, New Hampshire: Vesta Roy (Acting Governor for 8 days. Jeanne Shaheen was elected in 1996.)

7. 1983, Kentucky: Martha Layne Collins

8. 1985, Vermont: Madeleine Kunin

9. 1987, Nebraska: Kay Orr

10. 1988, Arizona: Ross Mofford (Acting Governor for nearly 3 years. Jane Hull became Acting Governor in 1997, and was elected in her own right in 1998. Janet Napolitano was elected in 2002, without having been Acting Governor.)

11. 1991, Kansas: Joan Finney

12. 1991, Oregon: Barbara Roberts (In 2015, Kate Brown of Oregon became the 1st openly gay female Governor of any State.)

13. 1994, New Jersey: Christine Todd Whitman

14. 1998, Ohio: Nancy Hollister (Acting Governor for 11 days.)

15. 2001, Montana: Judy Martz

16. 2001, Delaware: Ruth Ann Minner

17. 2001, Massachusetts: Jane Swift (Acting Governor for a year and a half. Maura Healey was elected in 2022.)

18. 2002, Hawaii: Linda Lingle

19. 2003, Michigan: Jennifer Granholm

20. 2003, Utah: Olene Walker (Acting Governor for a little over a year.)

21. 2004, Louisiana: Kathleen Blanco

22. 2006, Alaska: Sarah Palin

23. 2009, North Carolina: Bev Perdue

24. 2011, New Mexico: Susana Martinez (1st Hispanic female Governor of any State.)

25. 2011, Oklahoma: Mary Fallin

26. 2011, South Carolina: Nikki Haley (1st Asian-American female Governor of any State.)

27. 2015, Rhode Island: Gina Raimondo

28. 2017, Iowa: Kim Reynolds (Acting Governor, elected in her own right in 2018.)

29. 2019, Maine: Janet Mills

30. 2019, South Dakota: Kristi Noem

31. 2021, New York: Kathy Hochul (Acting Governor, elected in her own right in 2022.)

None yet: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, West Virginia, Wisconsin.

UPDATE: In 2023, Arkansas became the 32nd State with a female Governor, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, daughter of former Governor and Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee. In 2026, Virginia became the 33rd, Abigail Spanberger. A few days later, New Jersey swore in Mikie Sherrill, who was elected on the same day. In a weird turn of events, Sherrill was born and raised in Virginia, Spanberger was born and raised in New Jersey, and, as members of the House of Representatives, were roommates in a Washington apartment.

*

November 4, 1924 was, like all modern American Election Days, a Tuesday. Despite Coolidge's landslide, Nellie Tayloe Ross, a Democrat, was elected Governor of Wyoming, to replace her late husband, William B. Ross. I have a separate entry for that occurrence.

The World Series had ended 25 days before, with the Washington Senators winning, as it turned out, their only World Championship. As I mentioned, Calvin and Grace Coolidge were in attendance. Football was in midweek. The NHL season was 25 days away. And professional basketball barely existed. So there were no scores on this historic day.

October 29, 1991: The Tailhook Scandal Is Exposed

A demonstration after the exposure of the scandal

October 29, 1991: The Tailhook Scandal is exposed. It was one of the earliest "Me Too" stories.

A tailhook, arresting hook, or arrester hook, is a device attached to the rear of some military fixed-wing aircraft. The hook is used to achieve rapid deceleration during routine landings aboard aircraft carrier flight decks at sea, or during emergency landings or aborted takeoffs at properly equipped airports. The Tailhook Association is a non-profit organization supporting the interests of sea-based aviation, with emphasis on aircraft carriers.

The 35th Annual Tailhook Association Symposium was held at the Las Vegas Hilton from September 5 to 8, 1991. The Gulf War ad taken place earlier in the year, and over 11 hours of presentations and discussion concerning U.S. Navy and Marine Corps aviation operations in the conflict were to be the central focus for the 4,000 attendees.

Before the Symposium was over aviation officers were alleged to have sexually assaulted up to 83 women and 7 men, or otherwise engaged in "improper and indecent" conduct.

This scandal broke in the immediate aftermath of the Clarence Thomas hearings, and the reaction of American women was one of disgust. Something had to be done.

Not much was done: Approximately 40 naval and Marine officers received non-judicial punishment, mainly for conduct unbecoming an officer and false official statements. Three officers were taken to courts-martial, but their cases were dismissed. No officers were disciplined for the alleged sexual assaults.

The aftermath resulted in sweeping changes throughout all military services in the Department of Defense regarding attitudes and policies toward women.

The Las Vegas Hilton was originally the International Hotel, where Elvis held court from 1969 to 1977. It's now the Westgate Las Vegas.

*

October 29, 1991 was a Tuesday. The baseball season had ended 2 days earlier, when the Minnesota Twins won Game 7, and thus the World Series, over the Atlanta Braves. Football was in midweek. The NBA season began 3 days later. There were 5 games in the NHL:

* The New York Rangers beat the Minnesota North Stars, 3-2 at Madison Square Garden.

* The New York Islanders beat the San Jose Sharks, 8-4 at the Nassau Coliseum.

* The New Jersey Devils lost to the Vancouver Canucks, 4-3 at the Pacific Coliseum in Vancouver.

* The Quebec Nordiques beat the Winnipeg Jets, 7-2 at the Colisée de Québec. Owen Nolan had a hat trick.

* And the Washington Capitals beat the Pittsburgh Penguins, 8-0 at the Civic Arena in Pittsburgh.

October 21, 1941: Wonder Woman Debuts

October 21, 1941: All-Star Comics #8, with a cover dated January 1942, is published by the company now known as DC Comics. Although the main feature is the superhero team the Justice Society of America, and includes the introduction of JSA characters Doctor Mid-Nite and Starman, the issue is best remembered for a separate story, which features the introduction of a new superhero: Wonder Woman. (She was neither shown nor mentioned on the cover.)

The character proved popular enough to make her the featured character in a new series: Sensation Comics #1, also dated January 1942, was her 1st cover. But the character proved so popular that she was taken out of Sensation Comics, and given her own series: Wonder Woman #1 debuted in October 1942.

As created by psychologist William Moulston Marston and drawn by Harry G. Peter, the classic origin is that she lived among only women, the Amazons, on Paradise Island. She was the daughter of Queen Hippolyta, who, longing for a child but not wanting the mess of a relationship with a man, fashioned her out of clay, which was given life by the Greek gods.

The Island, based on ancient Greek culture, was long hidden from the eyes of men, until an American pilot, Major Steve Trevor, crash-landed there. He tells her of World War II, the great conflict beyond the island, and she goes with him to fight for the Allies, turning her title of Princess Diana into the secret identity "Diana Prince" so she can openly work for the U.S. government; until it becomes necessary for her to put on the star-spangled costume, complete with bulletproof bracelets, a tiara that she used as a boomerang, and the Lasso of Hestia, a rope that compels anyone caught in it to tell the truth.

Like a lot of superheroes in the early 1940s, she fought saboteurs, some of them with superpowers (or at least gadgets), working in the cause of the Axis. When World War II ended, her enemies, and thus her stories, became a bit more pedestrian, like gangsters, although there would still be the occasional international spy thrown in.

As the Swinging Sixties wore on, and people expected different things from their heroes, the approach to the character changed. In 1967, with the TV show Batman being a success, executive producer William Dozier wrote a pilot for a Wonder Woman series. But the 5-minute test clip, with a Diana Prince played by Ellie Wood Walker as so meek and mild-mannered she made Superman's alter ego Clark Kent look like an '80s action hero, and a Wonder Woman played by Linda Harrison, tanked with test audiences.

Linda Harrison

In 1968, with secret agent stories led by James Bond and Mission: Impossible all the rage, Wonder Woman's character was largely changed: Stripped of her powers in Wonder Woman #178, she became a secret agent, with nothing but her wits, her martial arts skills, and whatever gadgets she could get her hands on. This change proved divisive, and in 1973, with Wonder Woman #204, she got her powers and her classic costume back: Lasso, bracelets, tiara, all of it.

Also in 1973, she became a featured character on the ABC cartoon Super Friends, with fellow Justice League members Superman, Batman and Robin, and Aquaman. Shannon Farnon provided the voice of the character, who was shown with the ability to fly under her own power for the first time, although her invisible jet from the comics was included as well.

Still, there was no live-action release. Finally, on March 12, 1974, a Wonder Woman movie aired on ABC. The problem was, it was based on the non-powered secret agent version, starring Cathy Lee Crosby as a blonde version of the Princess of Paradise Island. It was not well-received.

Cathy Lee Crosby

But ABC wouldn't give up. They brought in Stanley Ralph Ross, one of the writers from the 1966-68 Batman series. This time, they got it right: On November 7, 1975, The New Original Wonder Woman premiered as a 90-minute movie, with former Miss USA Lynda Carter in the right costume, with the right backstory, and the right mission: Fighting Nazis, alongside Major Trevor, played by Lyle Waggoner. It was picked up as a series for the 1976-77 season, and was a roaring success.

Lynda Carter

But getting World War II-specific clothes, cars and equipment proved expensive -- the war had been over for 30 years -- so ABC canceled it after the 1st season. CBS offered to pick it up, on the condition that the action be moved to the present day.

The catch was that, at some point between the end of World War II -- or, perhaps, during it -- and 1977, Steve Trevor died, leading Diana to go back home. His son, Steve Trevor Jr., also played by Waggoner, was working with an intelligence agency (not the CIA, but one made up for the show), and he crash-landed on Paradise Island, starting the process all over again. This lasted for 2 more seasons.

In DC Comics' "Earth-One" and "Earth-Two" concept, the original versions of the superheroes were on Earth-Two, where they were older, and some had married and had children. The Earth-Two Wonder Woman married Steve, and they had a daughter, Hippolyta Trevor, named for Diana's mother. "Lyta" inherited her mother's powers, and became the hero Fury.

The Earth-One versions of Diana and Steve kept their relationship ambiguous. As a result of this, people have wondered whether, on an island populated only by women, Wonder Woman and the other residents were lesbian. Canonically, some have been, but Diana has always been depicted as straight.

When Crisis On Infinite Earths was issued in 1985, and everything was consolidated on a single Earth, the Earth-Two Wonder Woman was erased from existence. The biggest change in the Earth-One version was minor, but noteworthy: Her home island now had a Greek-sounding name, Themiscyra (pronounced "THEM-iss-KEER-ah").

In 2011, the Flashpoint storyline rewrote the DC Universe, creating "The New 52." This changed Wonder Woman's origin significantly: Now, she was born of a liaison between Hippolyta and Zeus, king of the Greek gods. The various heroes were also shown as being younger and earlier in their careers, meaning things like Superman's marriage to Lois Lane was no longer fact, thus giving some comic fans something they'd always wanted: A romance between Superman and Wonder Woman.

Some fans -- but not very many. Most fans hated it, and many of those who approved of the idea hated how it was carried out. Indeed, most comic readers who wanted Diana to romance a superhero didn't want it to be Superman, they wanted it to be Batman: There were far more "shippers" for "WonderBat" than for "SuperWonder."

The 2016 Rebirth event rewrote the DC Universe again, restoring the pre-Flashpoint stories. Example: Not only were Superman and Lois together again, but they had a son, Jon Kent. And, like all the other New 52 storylines, the SuperWonder storyline was rendered an alternate Earth story, or, as DC puts it, "Elseworlds."

Unlike Superman, Batman, and some other heroes, it had been a long time since there was a live-action Wonder Woman. Megan Gale had been cast in a Justice League film, but the project was killed by the 2008 scriptwriters' strike. In 2011, NBC tried a pilot with Adrianne Palicki as Wonder Woman, but, as with ABC in 1967, it didn't test well, and it never aired.

Adrianne Palicki

In 2016, Gal Gadot, an Israeli actress -- and, like Lynda Carter, a former national beauty queen -- was cast as Wonder Woman in Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice. It was one of the worst movies ever made, and she was just about the only good thing in it. She has since starred in Wonder Woman (2017), Justice League (also 2017) and Wonder Woman 1984 (2021).

Gal Gadot

But this Diana's story opened a huge plot hole, big enough to fly an invisible jet through. She debuted as Wonder Woman in 1918, at the end of World War I, then kept herself under the world's radar for 98 years, never aging, having to adopt new versions of the Diana Prince identity, until the arrival of Doomsday represented too great a threat to ignore.

But if World War I was enough of a reason to leave Themiscyra behind, why wasn't the even deadlier World War II enough of a reason? This is one of so many reasons the DC Extended Universe, a.k.a. the Snyderverse, is unacceptable.

While her name has been mentioned in The CW's Arrowverse, and her adoptive sister Donna Troy, a.k.a. Wonder Girl, has been featured on the related series Titans (played by Conor Leslie), Diana has not been shown on any Arrowverse show. (A young Debra Winger played Wonder Girl opposite Lynda Carter, except she was named Drusilla.)

But Wonder Woman remains the greatest female superhero, and a symbol of feminine power, and of feminism itself. The fact that her Justice League teammates Superman and Batman -- the three of them, together, are known as the DC Trinity -- both admire her over all other superheroes speaks volumes.

In a 2016 episode of the YouTube series Epic Rap Battles of History, Indo-Canadian comedian Lilly Singh played Wonder Woman, while rapper T-Pain played Stevie Wonder. The battle only made sense because both had "Wonder" in their stage names, and I find it hard to believe that, if Wonder Woman actually existed, she and Stevie wouldn't have been big fans of each other.

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October 21, 1941 was a Tuesday. The World Series had ended 15 days earlier, with the New York Yankees beating the Brooklyn Dodgers. Football was in midweek. The NBA hadn't been founded yet. And the NHL season didn't start for another 11 days. So there were no scores on this historic day.

October 15, 1991: Clarence Thomas Is Confirmed for the U.S. Supreme Court

October 15, 1991: The U.S. Senate votes to confirm Clarence Thomas to the U.S. Supreme Court, by a very close vote of 52-48. He got the support of 41 Republicans and 11 Democrats, while 46 Democrats and 2 Republicans voted against him.

He had been appointed by President George H.W. Bush, to fill the seat of the retiring Thurgood Marshall, who had been the 1st black Justice on the Court. Thomas was the 2nd, and, at the time, his record was so thin, liberals alleged that Bush was only appointing him because he was a black conservative. I am of the firm belief that had he been, pardon the choice of words, judged solely on his qualifications, he would have been rejected.

But women came forward to allege that he had sexually harassed them, and the Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee -- especially Orrin Hatch of Utah, Alan Simpson of Wyoming, and, more than any of them, Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania -- attacked the credibility of these women.

Especially ill-treated by those Senators was the most compelling witness, Anita Hill, who had recently been appointed the 1st black professor at the University of Oklahoma College of Law. Thomas had been Chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) under President Ronald Reagan, and Hill testified under oath that she and other subordinates had been harassed by Thomas.

He, also under oath, denied the charges. One of them was lying; therefore, one of them was committing perjury, a federal felony. Given that Hill's testimony was calm, and Thomas' was one step below a full-on rant, it appeared that Thomas was the one lying, which not only should have disqualified him on the spot, but put him under criminal investigation.

I think the charges against Thomas made the Republicans dig their heels in, and do whatever it took to get his nomination confirmed, just for the sake of angering Democrats. Or, as would be said in the 21st Century, "to own the libs."

Thomas has been part of the conservative bulwark of the Court that gave us such unacceptable decisions as Bush v. Gore (stopping the recount of the Florida votes in the 2000 Presidential election), Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission (the 2010 case that struck down campaign finance laws), and Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization (the 2022 case that repealed Roe v. Wade and took away a woman's Constitutionally established right to decide for herself if and when to have a child). Until Justice Antonin Scalia died in 2016, Thomas was notorious for simply voting the exact same way Scalia did, doing so 91 percent of the time.

Although no further allegations of sexual harassment have been leveled at Thomas, he may well be the worst Justice of the last 100 years -- and, with the death of Scalia and the retirement in 2018 of Anthony Kennedy, he is now the seniormost Justice. His wife, Ginni -- white, and flat-out crazy -- had an active role in the Capitol Insurrection of 2021.

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October 15, 1991 was a Tuesday. This was an off-day in baseball's postseason. Two days earlier, the Minnesota Twins had won the American League Pennant, beating the Toronto Blue Jays in the AL Championship Series.

It was a travel day in the National League Championship Series, with the Pittsburgh Pirates leading the Atlanta Braves, 3 games to 2, with Game 6 and, if necessary, Game 7 in Pittsburgh. But the Braves won both of those games, to take their 1st Pennant in 23 years, since 1958, when they were still in Milwaukee. The Twins went on to beat the Braves in 7 games, in one of the best World Series ever played.

Football was in midweek. The NBA season didn't start until November 1. There were 4 games played in the NHL, only 1 involving a New York Tri-State Area team:

* The New York Islanders lost to the defending Stanley Cup Champions, the Pittsburgh Penguins, 7-6 at the Nassau Coliseum. The Isles blew a 6-2 lead. Mario Lemieux scored a hat trick, and Phil Bourque scored the winning goal with 2:30 left in overtime.

* The Detroit Red Wings beat the Edmonton Oilers, 3-1 at the Joe Louis Arena in Detroit.

* The St. Louis Blues beat the Toronto Maple Leafs, 5-1 at the St. Louis Arena.

* And the Calgary Flames beat the Minnesota North Stars, 6-3 at the Saddledome in Calgary.

October 3, 1922: The 1st Female U.S. Senator

October 3, 1922: Rebecca Felton is appointed the 1st female U.S. Senator, by the Governor of Georgia, Thomas Hardwick, to replace the late Senator Thomas Watson. The special election to fill Watson’s seat was held on November 21, and she was sworn in on that day; and the winner of that election, Walter George, was sworn in the next day. So she served all of one day.

At 87, she was the oldest "freshman" Senator ever. And she was the most progressive politician in Georgia at the time, favoring women's right to vote, educational reform and prison reform. Which should tell you just how bad Georgia was at the time, because the State's most progressive politician was the last former slave owner to serve in Congress, and spoke in favor of lynching. (She was 26 when the American Civil War began.)

She died in 1930. Not until Kelly Loeffler in 2020 would Georgia have another female Senator.

In 1931, Hattie Caraway won a special election for U.S. Senator from Arkansas, succeeding her late husband. Unlike Senator Felton, she was elected to a term in her own right in 1932. She was re-elected in 1938, but was defeated in the Democratic Primary in 1944.

In 1978, Nancy Kassebaum became the first woman ever elected to a full term in the Senate without her husband having previously served in Congress. However, she was the daughter of Alfred M. Landon, who had been Governor of Kansas, and the Republican Party's nominee for President in 1936. She was elected to 3 terms before retiring.

If you're thinking about Margaret Chase Smith, Republican of Maine, who was the 1st woman to serve in both houses of Congress -- the House of Representatives from 1940 to 1949, and then the Senate until 1973 -- she was elected to the House to succeed her husband, Clyde Smith, who had died in office.

Here's a list of each State's 1st female Senator -- if any -- and the year they took office:

1. 1922, Georgia: Rebecca Felton

2. 1931, Arkansas: Hattie Caraway

3. 1936, Louisiana: Rose Long

4. 1937, Alabama: Dixie Graves

5. 1938, South Dakota: Gladys Pyle

6. 1949, Maine: Margaret Chase Smith

7. 1954, Nebraska: Eva Bowning

8. 1960, Oregon: Maurine Neuberger

9. 1978, Minnesota: Muriel Humphrey

10. 1978, Kansas: Nancy Kassebaum

11. 1981, Florida: Paula Hawkins

12. 1987, Maryland: Barbara Mikulski

13. 1992, North Dakota: Jocelyn Burdick

14. 1992, California: Dianne Feinstein (the 1st Jewish female Senator)

15. 1993, Illinois: Carol Moseley-Braun (the 1st black female Senator)

16. 1993, Washington: Patty Murray

17. 1993, Texas: Kay Hutchison

18. 2001, Missouri: Jean Carnahan

19. 2001, New York: Hillary Clinton

20. 2001, Michigan: Debbie Stabenow

21. 2002, Alaska: Lisa Murkowski

22. 2003, North Carolina: Elizabeth Dole

23. 2009, New Hampshire: Jeanne Shaheen 

24. 2013, Wisconsin: Tammy Baldwin (the 1st openly gay Senator of any gender)

25. 2013, Hawaii: Mazie Hirono (the 1st Asian-American female Senator)

26. 2013, Massachusetts: Elizabeth Warren

27. 2015, Iowa: Jodi Ernst

28. 2015, West Virginia: Shelley Moore Capito

29. 2017, Nevada: Catherine Cortez Masto (the 1st Hispanic female Senator)

30. 2018, Mississippi: Cindy Hyde-Smith

31. 2019, Tennessee: Marsha Blackburn

32. 2019, Arizona: Kyrsten Sinema & Martha McSally (sworn in simultaneously)

33. 2021, Wyoming: Cynthia Lummis

None yet: Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Utah, Vermont, Virginia.

UPDATE: In 2025, Delaware became the 34th State with a female U.S. Senator.

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October 3, 1922 was a Tuesday. Baseball was between the regular season and the World Series. Football was in midweek. The NHL season was 2 months away. And there was no professional basketball league yet. So there were no scores on this historic day.

September 6, 1968: The Miss America Protest

September 6, 1968: Feminists protest the Miss America Pageant on the Boardwalk in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Some people consider this the beginning of the modern feminist movement in America, a.k.a. Second Wave Feminism.

To counter the song Bert Parks, host of the Pageant's broadcast, sang after each Miss America was crowned – "There she is, Miss America! There she is, your ideal!" – they threw items they considered "instruments of oppression" into a trash can.

This included bras. Somehow, in the public mind, this got conflated with men burning their draft cards, and it became the beginning of "bra burning." In fact, nothing was burned at this protest. Maybe some people got sunburn, but there was never a public bra burning in the name of feminism, not on this occasion, or on any other.

The next day, Judith Anne Ford, Miss Illinois, won the Pageant.

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September 6, 1968 was a Friday. These baseball games were played:

* The New York Mets lost to the Pittsburgh Pirates, 2-1 at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. Steve Blass outpitched Jim McAndrew. Roberto Clemente hit a home run. The Mets' only run came on a home run by Jerry Grote.

* The Chicago White Sox beat the Baltimore Orioles, 3-2 at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore. Buddy Bradford won the game with a home run leading off the top of the 11th inning. Brooks Robinson went 2-for-5 with an RBI. Frank Robinson went 1-for-6.

* The Atlanta Braves beat the Houston Astros, 7-1 at Atlanta Stadium (later renamed Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium). Hank Aaron went 1-for-3 with a walk.

* The Los Angeles Dodgers swept a doubleheader from the Cincinnati Reds, 6-4 and 8-6 at Crosley Field in Cincinnati. Over the 2 games, Pete Rose went 3-for-10, and Johnny Bench, about to be named National League Rookie of the Year, went 3-for-6 with a walk.

* The Detroit Tigers beat the Minnesota Twins, 8-3 at Tiger Stadium in Detroit. Al Kaline went 1-for-3 with a walk and an RBI. Harmon Killebrew struck out as a pinch-hitter, and Rod Carew did not play. The Twins did get a sign of the future, as Graig Nettles hit a home run, but he wouldn't give most of that future to them.

* The Philadelphia Phillies beat the Chicago Cubs, 5-2 at Wrigley Field in Chicago. Ernie Banks went 1-for-4 with an RBI.

* The San Francisco Giants swept the St. Louis Cardinals, 3-2 and 8-7 at Busch Memorial Stadium in St. Louis. Willie Mays only appeared as a defensive replacement in the 1st game, in which Bobby Bolin outpitched Bob Gibson, who fell to 20-7, with an ERA of 1.03. Juan Marichal outpitched Steve Carlton in the 2nd game, in which Mays went 3-for-4 with a home run and 3 RBIs.

* The California Angels beat the Boston Red Sox, 4-0 at Anaheim Stadium (now Angel Stadium of Anaheim). Andy Messersmith pitched a 2-hit shutout. Carl Yastrzemski went 0-for-1 with 3 walks.

* The Oakland Athletics beat the Cleveland Indians, 7-0 at the Oakland Coliseum. John "Blue Moon" Odom pitched a 6-hit shutout. Rookie Reggie Jackson went 0-for-2 with 2 walks.

* And the New York Yankees and the Washington Senators were rained out at Yankee Stadium. The game was made up as part of a doubleheader the next day. The Yankees swept, 16-2 and 10-0. Mel Stottlemyre won the 1st game, and went 2-for-4 to help his own cause. The Yankees got home runs from Jake Gibbs, Joe Pepitone and Roy White. Mickey Mantle, in what turned out to be his last month as an active player, went 2-for-3 with a walk and an RBI in the 1st game, and got the 2nd game off.

Fritz Peterson won the 2nd game, and the Yankees got home runs from Frank Fernández and, newly acquired and in his last month as an active player, Bronx native and former Cleveland and Detroit slugger Rocky Colavito. 

Over the 2 games, White went 4-for-8 with 2 walks and 2 RBIs, Gibbs went 1-for-6 with 2 RBIs, Pepitone went 2-for-5 with a walk and 2 RBIs, Horace Clarke went 4-for-11 with 3 RBIs, and Tom Tresh went 3-for-9 with 2 RBIs.

August 18, 1920: Women Get the Right to Vote

August 18, 1920: The legislature of the State of Tennessee ratifies an Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, granting women the right to vote in all American elections.

Previously, only 4 States had granted women the right to vote, and that was just in State and local elections, not for federal offices such as President and Congress.

The Constitution prescribes a procedure for amending it: A proposed Amendment must pass each house of Congress by a 2/3rds majority, and then must pass 3/4 of the State legislatures. Under today's format, that means 290 out of 435 in the U.S. House of Representatives, 67 out of 100 in the U.S. Senate, and 38 out of the 50 State legislatures.

In 1920, there were 48 States, and Tennessee became the 36th State to ratify the proposal, making it the 19th Amendment to the Constitution. At least, all women at least 21 years of age who were U.S. Citizens could vote. (The 26th Amendment, in 1971, lowered the voting age to 18.)

In 1999, PBS premiered Ken Burns' documentary Not for Ourselves Alone: The Story of Elizabeth Cady Stanton & Susan B. Anthony. The 2 leading advocates for women's rights in the 19th Century did not live to see the great moment: Stanton died in 1902, and Anthony in 1906. For the film's ending, Burns interviewed 2 women who were 1st-time voters in 1920, and were, by the time of the interview, 100 years old.

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August 18, 1920 was a Wednesday. It is fitting that the most famous person born on this day was a woman, actress Shelley Winters.

Major League Baseball scores on this historic day:

* New York Yankees 4, Cleveland Indians 3, at the Polo Grounds in New York. This was a continuation of the series in which, 2 days earlier, Indians shortstop Ray Chapman was hit in the head with a pitch by Carl Mays. He died the next day, August 17.

* Philadelphia Athletics 1, Chicago White Sox 0, at Shibe Park in Philadelphia.

* St. Louis Browns 13, Washington Senators 2, at Griffith Stadium in Washington.

* Boston Red Sox 6, Detroit Tigers 5, in 11 innings, at Fenway Park in Boston.

So all of the Amercan League teams played on this day, but none of the National League teams did: The Boston Braves, the Brooklyn Dodgers, the Chicago Cubs, the Cincinnati Reds, the New York Giants, the Philadelphia Phillies, the Pittsburgh Pirates and the St. Louis Cardinals were all idle.