January 1

Women peacemakers born today

• 1888 Francesca Wilson born Newcastle-on-Tyne, England (d. 1981). Quaker relief worker; offered aid to Belgian children in England, 1914; France, 1916; Serbs in Corsica, 1917, and Tunisia, 1918; Serbia, 1919. Fed Austrian children, 1919; famine relief to Russia, 1922; children in Spanish Civil War, 1937-38; Spanish in France, 1939; Polish refugees in Hungary, 1940. Assisted UNRRA in postwar Germany.

• 1890 Carmelita Hinton born Omaha, NE (d. 1983). American internationalist educator; led Jane Addams Centennial; Hull House associate; founded Putney School, 1935.

• 1924 Dadi Prakashmani born Hyderabad, India (d. 2007). Spiritual leader of Brahma Kumaris. Awarded UN Peace Medal for Million Minutes for Peace, 1984.

• 1933 Rosalie Sorrels born Boise, ID. Anti-Vietnam War folk singer; sang protest songs "Enola Gay," "I Will Not Obey," "Trooper's Lament," and "Killing Ground."

• 1934 Bernadette Rebienot born Libreville, Gabon. Spiritual leader and healer. Honored by Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR) as one of International Council of 13 Indigenous Grandmothers with International Pfeffer Peace Prize, 2013.

• 1954 Betty Oyella Bigombe born Acholi district, Uganda. World Bank expert in post-conflict problems. Minister of Water Resources, 2011. Two-time mediator in attempted peace with Lord’s Resistance Army, 1992, 2004-05.

• 1960 Latifa ibn Ziaten born Tétuan, Morocco. After Muslim extremist murdered her son she took on mission of peace and reconciliation. Founded Imad Association for Youth and Peace, 2012. Received International Women of Courage Award, 2016.

Women's peacemaking on this day

• 1908 Gandhi read speech of 20-year-old Sonia Schlesin at opening of Satyagraha campaign in a Johannesburg mosque.

• 1911 Emma Goldman co-founded Modern School, New York.

• 1916 The International Committee of Women for Permanent Peace published the first issue of its monthly newsletter, Internationaal.

• 1919 First meeting of Fight the Famine Council opposing allied food blockade, organized by Dorothy Buxton and Eglantyne Jebb.

• 1919 Edith Ainge led watchfire demonstration at White House for women's suffrage.

• 1933 In Munich, Erika Mann opened cabaret Die Pfeffermühle (“The Peppermill”), which openly mocked fascist power.

• 1953 Mildred Norman left Pasadena, CA to begin 25,000-mile peace pilgrimage.

• 1973 Ginetta Sagan led Amnesty International’s Campaign for the Abolition of Torture.

• 1975 International Women's Year began.

• 1979 Mary Evelyn Jegen named first national coordinator of Pax Christi.

• 1983 Greenham Common protesters stage a dance against installation of American cruise missiles.

• 1991 Sue Frankel-Streit & Moana Cole, members of ANZUS Peace Force Ploughshares, damaged a B-52 bomber at Griffiss Air Force Base in civil disobedience. They were later sentenced to a one-year prison term.

• 1992 Greenham women stage another dance in protest of American cruise missiles.

• 1999 Doris Haddock began 3,200-mile cross-country peace walk, starting from Pasadena, CA.

• 2000 Maria Otero named president and CEO of microfinance organization Acción.

• 2000 82 Israeli women, Palestinian and Jewish, condemned the NATO bombing of Kosovo.

• 2010 Women Say Free Gaza issued Cairo Declaration.

• 2011 Nine women, aged 40 to 91, arrested for bringing solar panels to the Vermont Yankee nuclear reactor.

January 2

Women peacemakers born today

• 1857 M. Carey Thomas born Baltimore, MD (d. 1935). Feminist; president of Bryn Mawr College; reviver of Quaker Peace Testimony; co-founder of International Federation of University Women, 1919.

• 1886 Elise Ottesen-Jensen born Høyland, Norway (d. 1973). Pioneering feminist; anarcho-pacifist; founded International Planned Parenthood, 1952.

• 1898 Marta Vergara born Santiago, Chile (d. 1995). Chilean feminist pioneer; author and journalist. Communist; anti-imperialist opponent of US military intervention. Delegate to League of Nations. Represented Chile at Conference on Codification of International Law, 1930.

• 1900 Mildred Osterhout Fahrni born Rapid City, Canada (d. 1992). Gandhian; Socialist; absolute pacifist; friend of Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. Leader of FOR and WILPF; opposed World War II; worked with pacifist Dukhobors.

• 1982 Dalia Ziada born Cairo, Egypt. Nonviolent activist; poet. Leader of Arab Spring protests at Tahrir Square, 2011.

Women's peacemaking on this day

• 1243 Death of Blessed Ortolana, mother of Saints Clare and Agnes, whom she followed in Franciscan mission of peace.

• 1910 Mass rally at New York's Carnegie Hall, in support of 370 female garment workers who were arrested.

• 1913 Alice Paul founded National American Woman Suffrage Association.

• 1983 Italian women blocked Comiso airbase in nonviolent protest.

• 1996 100,000 Bangladeshi women rallied in Dacca to protest Islamist clerics' attacks on women's education and employment.

• 2013 Women vandalized Mumbai nightclub Bonobo for selling “rape cocktails.”

January 3

Women peacemakers born today

• 1793 Lucretia Mott born Nantucket, RI (d. 1880). Quaker nonviolent abolitionist and feminist. Co-organized the Seneca Falls Convention; co-founded Swarthmore College.

• 1881 Sophy Sanger born Westcott, Surrey, England (d. 1950). British internationalist and labor reformer. Barred from Hague Women's Peace Congress, 1915; founding member of WILPF.

• 1928 Nan Cross born Pretoria, South Africa (d. 2007). South African opponent of Apartheid and conscription. Co-founded Conscientious Objector Support Group, 1980; End Conscription Campaign, 1983; Ceasefire Campaign against arms trade, 1993.

• 1932 Setsuko Thurlow born Hiroshima, Japan. Canadian hibakusha survivor of Hiroshima bombing, 1945. Social worker; speaker; several world voyages on Peace Boat; awarded the Order of Merit, Canada's highest honor, for her peace work, 2007.

• 1946 Maureen Harding Clark born Scotland. Served as Irish judge on International Criminal Court, 2002-06; presided over Yugoslavia war crimes tribunal, 1999.

• 1953 Kate Dewes born Hawera, New Zealand. Peace activist and professor of peace studies, Canterbury University. Pioneered World Court Project, 1986; won ruling against nuclear weapons, 1996. Director of South Island Regional Office of Aotearoa/New Zealand Peace foundation for over 30 years. Vice-President, International Peace Bureau, 1997-2003. UN disarmament adviser, 2009.

• 1958 Liya Kebede born Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Supermodel and actress. World Health Organization Goodwill Ambassador, 2005.

Women's peacemaking on this day

• Feast of St. Genevieve (c. 422-500), who saved Paris from capture by Huns c. 451.

• 1971 Bella Abzug introduced resolution against Vietnam War on her first day in Congress.

• 1983 44 Greenham women tried at Newbury for dancing on missile silos.

• 1995 Committee of Soldiers’ Mothers of Russia protested Chechen War in Red Square, Moscow.

• 2007 Alicia Barcena Ibarra appointed UN Under-Secretary for Management.

• 2010 Human rights activist Josefina Reyes assassinated in Chihuahua, Mexico.

January 4

Women peacemakers born today

• 1840 Matilde Bajer born Frederikseg, Denmark (d. 1934). Danish peace leader; peace partner of 1908 Nobel Peace Prize laureate; feminist and suffragist. Founded Danish Women's Peace Association, 1906; first woman elected to Danish upper house, 1918; first president Women's Union for Progress, 1886.

• 1904 Renuka Ray born Calcutta, India (d. 1997). Lifelong nonviolent follower of Gandhi; UN delegate, 1949; member of Indian parliament, 1957-67.

• 1943 Doris Kearns Goodwin born Brooklyn, NY. Historian; early Vietnam war protester.

• 1956 Zehava Schnipitzky Gal-On born Vilnius, Lithuania, USSR. Israeli politician, 1999-present; Meretz party leader; member of B'Tselem, supporting evacuation of West Bank, and right of return. Served five-day prison term for organizing demonstration against the demolition of Qalqilyah homes; opposed second Lebanon war, 2006; opposed Gaza invasion, 2014.

• 1965 Julia Ormond born Epsom, England. Actress; active in opposition to human trafficking; UN Goodwill Ambassador, 2005.

• 1981 Alicia Garza born Los Angeles, CA. Community organizer; anti-racism activist. Co-founded Black Lives Matter movement, 2013.

• 1991 Tal al-Mallouhi born Homs, Syria. Jailed for blogging, 2008; received 5-year prison sentence for spying.

Women's peacemaking on this day

• 1929 WILPF held conference in Frankfurt am Main on the topic of "Modern Methods of Warfare and the Protection of the Civil Population." Scientists in attendance included Albert Einstein. "The next war. . . will be a war of simultaneous extermination of the people and threatens to destroy all civilization."

• 1945 Maria Occhipinti lay in front of Italian army trucks at Ragusa to protest conscription.

• 1957 In Cuba, the mother of William Soler, a 14-year-old tortured and killed for suspicion of revolutionary activities, led hundreds in the Santiago Women's March, the first public protest against the Batista regime.

• 2003 Kathryn Blume and Sharon Bower began the Lysistrata Project in opposition to the Iraq War.

• 2003 Donna Sheehan led Unreasonable Women Baring Witness in protest, spelling out “NO WAR” with their nude bodies on a Marin, California hillside.

January 5

Women peacemakers born today

• 1807 Elizabeth Pease Nichol born Darlington, England (d. 1897). Quaker; suffragist; leading British abolitionist; Chartist. Criticized Britain's policy in India.

• 1835 Olympia Brown born Prairie Ronde, MI (d. 1926). Universalist minister; suffragist; member of WILPF.

• 1861 Mary “Maikki” Friberg born Kankaanpäå, Finland (d. 1927). Finnish feminist author, teacher, and peacemaker. One of first 19 women elected to Finnish Parliament, 1907. Co-founded Peace Union, 1920; founded Finnish WILPF, 1926.

• 1878 Nelly Roussel born Paris, France (d. 1922). Anarchist; pacifist; free thinker. Spoke on birth control and population growth.

• 1893 Sybil Morrison (d. 1994). Pacifist; feminist; lesbian; chair of British WILPF. Jailed 6 months for opposing war, 1940; released book entitled I Renounce War, 1962.

• 1932 Raisa Gorbachev born Rubtsovsk, Siberia (d. 1999). Russian first lady, 1988-1991; delivered commencement speech at Wellesley College on women's role in society, 1990.

• 1947 Saskia Sassen born The Hague, Netherlands. Dutch-American sociology professor and authority on globalization of cities.

Women's peacemaking on this day

• 1916 Helen Keller delivered a speech entitled "Strike Against War" at Carnegie Hall for the Women's Peace Party.

• 1919 Re-arrested and sentenced 10 days for Watchfire protest, four suffragettes began fasting.

• 1992 UNICEF pediatrician Dr. Martinka Pumplova murdered in Bosasa, Somalia.

January 6

Women peacemakers born today

• 1878 Marian Cripps born Nottingham, England (d. 1952). Quaker war resister; twin sister of peacemaker Edith. Co-founded Fellowship of Reconciliation; founding member of WILPF. President of World YWCA, 1924-28. Head of British WILPF, 1950.

• 1878 Edith Maud Ellis born Nottinghamshire, England (d. 1963). Quaker; absolute pacifist; daughter of MP. Served as president of British WILPF; led Friends Service Committee, counseling those who refused conscription during World War I; acted as mediator to end Korean War; published pamphlet A Challenge to Militarism, for which she was fined £150, spent 3 months in Holloway Prison.

• 1921 Mary Maffeo born Casper, WY (d. 2012). Catholic peacemaker; opposed nuclear testing. Aided refugees from war in Central America; served on Catholic international commission to end Vietnam War.

• 1946 Anja Meulenbelt born Utrecht, Netherlands. Prominent feminist author and politician; Socialist member of Dutch parliament; promoted peace in Balkans and Palestine; recipient of Journalist for Peace Award, 2004.

Women's peacemaking on this day

• 1907 Maria Montessori opened her first school in Rome.

• 1929 Mother Teresa arrived in Calcutta to start her work with the poor.

• 1993 Maria Kirbasova led the Committee of Soldiers' Mothers of Russia into Chechnya.

• 2000 Eight Puerto Rican women, including actress Rosie Perez, arrested for climbing steps of US mission to the UN in protest of the bombing of Vieques.

• 2010 Poet and human rights activist Susana Chávez murdered in Juárez, Mexico.

• 2010 Journalists in Trouble President Rozlana Taukina held a flash rally, releasing blue and yellow balloons bearing the names of journalists imprisoned by the Kazakh government.

• 2014 Five Cambodian women arrested while peacefully protesting detention of Boeung Kak lake activists.

January 7

Women peacemakers born today

• 1840 Celine Renooz born Liège, Belgium (d. 1928). Feminist author and lecturer; matriarchal pacifist.

• 1862 Cora Ann Slocomb born New Orleans, LA (d. 1944). American-born wife of Italian Count of Brazza; president of International Postal Union, 1897. Defended immigration; organized earthquake relief; saved a woman from capital punishment; lectured on peace and international arbitration; invented the yellow, purple and white peace flag later adopted by the International Peace Bureau.

• 1871 Caroline Lasson born Oslo, Norway (d. 1970). Norwegian singer and actress; follower of Gandhian nonviolence; wrote book on her 1931 visit to Gandhi; founded Norwegian Friends of India Society, 1932.

• 1929 Azucena Berruti born Tres Cruces, Uruguay. Famed human rights lawyer. As first woman Minister of Defense, refused participation in US School of Americas, 2005-08.

• 1943 Sadako Sasaki born Hiroshima, Japan (d. 1955). Atomic bomb survivor; led peace appeal through efforts to create 1000 paper cranes.

• 1964 Ruchira Gupta born Kolcata, India. Leading Indian sex traffic abolitionist; journalist; nonviolent activist. Founded Apne Aap Women Worldwide, 2002.

• 1968 Ҫiğdem Yorgancioglu born Istanbul, Turkey. Turkish artist and poet. Panelist at Women Lead to Peace Summit, 2014.

Women's peacemaking on this day

• 1919 Washington DC police extinguished suffragists’ watchfire, burning copies of President Wilson’s speeches, only to be confronted with many more fires nearby.

• 1943 National Committee to Oppose Conscription of Women founded by Mildred Scott Olmsted.

• 1991 Ardelle Hough arrested in Madison, WI during protest against Gulf War when chained to door of Federal Building.

• 1991 Kay Camp and Joan Drake went to Baghdad as part of WILPF's International Women's Peace Delegation to stop Gulf War.

January 8

Women peacemakers born today

• 1867 Emily Greene Balch born Jamaica Plain, MA (d. 1961). "Improper Bostonian" awarded Nobel Peace Prize, 1946; founding member of WILPF; as economist, proposed the idea of international mandates for colonies.

• 1849 Ida Whipple Benham born Quakertown, CT (d. 1903). Quaker; peace poet; director of American Peace Society, 1897.

• 1859 Fanny Bullock Workman born Worcester, MA (d. 1925). Mountaineer; geographer; cartographer; linguist. Cycled around the world carrying sign "Votes for Women."

• 1888 Millicent Baxter born Christchurch, New Zealand (d. 1984). Anti-militarist. Converted to pacifism upon learning of persecution of World War I conscientious objector, whom she later married, 1918. Member War Resister’s League.

• 1899 Srinivasa Ambujammal born Chennai, India. Gandhian organizer; president of Women's Swadeshi League; organizer for Women's Voluntary Corps; jailed 6 months in Vellore for civil disobedience, 1932.

Women's peacemaking on this day

• 1870 Suffragist Lucy Stone's newspaper The Woman's Journal published its first issue.

• 1988 Pele Women began 6 months jail sentence for nuclear test demonstration.

January 9

Women peacemakers born today

• 1854 Anna Kuliscioff born Moskaya, Crimea (d. 1925) Italian feminist, socialist-anarchist doctor and editor; opposed World War I and Mussolini.

• 1859 Carrie Chapman Catt born Ripon, WI (d. 1947). Suffragist. Instrumental in the founding of numerous women's organizations: the Women's Peace Party, 1915; the League of Women Voters, 1920; the Committee on the Cause and Cure of War, 1924. Supported the League of Nations and the UN.

• 1868 Irene Marryat Parlby born London, England (d. 1965). Canadian delegate to League of Nations, 1930; one of the Famous Five, a group of women who greatly impacted women's rights in Canada.

• 1877 Emily Newell Blair born Joplin, MO (d. 1951). Suffragist; feminist; politician. Co-founder of the League of Women Voters, 1920; first female vice chair of the Democratic National Committee, 1921; contributor to Why Wars Must Cease, 1935, though expressed support of both World Wars.

• 1908 Simone de Beauvoir born Paris, France (d. 1986). French feminist; existentialist philosopher; wrote landmark feminist text The Second Sex, 1949. Opposed World War I, nuclear weapons, Vietnam War.

• 1935 Jeanne Devos born Kortenaken, Belgium. Nun; worked over 40 years to end child slavery in India; Nobel Prize nominee.

• 1939 Susannah York born London, England (d. 2011). British actress; vice-president of the Movement for the Abolition of War; protested nuclear weapons, 1984 and the Iraq War, 2003; campaigned to free Mordechai Vanunu.

• 1941 Joan Baez born Staten Island, NY. Antiwar singer; founded Institute for Nonviolence, 1965.

• 1952 Rigoberta Menchu born Chimel, Guatemala. Indigenous rights advocate ;UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador; awarded Nobel Peace Prize, 1992.

• 1952 Eveline Herfkens born The Hague, Netherlands. UN Undersecretary for Millennium Goals, 2002; recipient of first International Commitment to Development Award, 2003.

• 1957 Sisi Khampepe born Soweto, Transvaal. Commissioner of South Africa Truth & Reconciliation Commission, 1995; Justice of South Africa Constitutional Court, 2009.

• 1968 Alice Wairimu Nderitu born Nairobi, Kenya. Commissioner Kenya’s National Cohesion and Integration Commission (NCIC), 2009 resolving ethnic conflicts; instrumental in peace referendum, 2010; sole woman who negotiated Nakuru Peace, 2012.

Women's peacemaking on this day

• Feast Day of St. Marciana (d. 303 Caesarea, Mauritania) who resisted rape by gladiators, and converted one of her attackers.

• 1982 Women chained themselves to the gates of a Mormon Temple in Kensington, MD in nonviolent protest.

• 2004 Guerrilla Girls exhibition “Yo! What Happened to Peace?” at Transport Gallery, Los Angeles, CA.

January 10

Women peacemakers born today

• 1480 Margaret of Austria born Brussels, Belgium (d. 1530). Regent of the Netherlands; poet and patron of arts and architecture; negotiated the Treaty of Cambrai, called the "Peace of the Ladies," with Louise of Savoy, 1529.

• 1932 Helga Tempel born Hamburg, Germany. Quaker pacifist; counselor on conscientious objection. Co-founded Action Group for Nonviolence, 1956; co-founded World Peace Brigade Beirut, 1962. Awarded Olaf Palne Peace Prize, 1988.

• 1884 Mathilde Vaerting born Messingen, Lower Saxony, Germany (d. 1977). Professor of education; psychologist; authority on gender differences. Showed that dominance by either sex could cause war; fired and banned by Nazis, 1933.

Women's peacemaking on this day

• 1915 Jane Addams and Carrie Chapman Catt founded Woman's Peace Party at the Willard Hotel, Washington, DC.

• 1917 Alice Paul organized the first White House vigil and the first women's pickets in history, which continued for 2 1/2 years.

• 1946 Eleanor Roosevelt appointed as US delegate to the first UN General Assembly.

• 1996 Kathy Shields Boylan sentenced to four months jail for pouring blood on atom bomber "Enola Gay."

• 2015 Korean-American singer and author Shin Eun-mi deported from South Korea for making favorable remarks about North Korea.

January 11

Women peacemakers born today

• 1795 Barbara Heinemann Landmann born Leitersweiler, Alsace (d. 1883). Founder of utopian pacifist community Amana Society, 1854; sole leader, 1867-83.

• 1858 Margaret Nevinson born Leicester, England (d. 1932). British social reformer; suffragist. Co-founded nonviolent Women's Freedom League, 1907; her writings encouraged tax refusal and boycott of the 1911 census. Opposed World War I; promoted the League of Nations; vice-president of Women's Peace Crusade.

• 1886 Alice Paul born Laurel Hill, NJ (d.1977). Quaker pacifist; suffragist; member of the National Women's Suffrage Association; later founded National Woman’s Party, 1913; organized first nonviolent pickets of the White House, 1917.

• 1962 Susan Lindauer. Peace activist; journalist; opposed Iraq War. Arrested for alleged espionage, 2004.

Women's peacemaking on this day

• 1982 17 women arrested at White House for burning effigy of President Reagan.

• 1983 British court grants Greenham women right to vote from Peace Camp.

• 2003 Guerrilla Girls exhibition “The Anti-War Show: U.S. Interventions from Korea to Iraq” at Track 16 Gallery, Santa Monica, CA.

• 2007 Zohra Zewawi, mother of Guantanamo prisoner Omar Deghayes, protested at base for blinding her son.

• 2008 Nepali human rights activist Uma Singh murdered and mutilated.

• 2010 Frida Berrigan organized Washington, DC protest of failure to close Guantanamo Bay detention camp.

January 12

Women peacemakers born today

• 1820 Caroline Severance born Canandaigua, NY (d. 1914). Unitarian pacifist; abolitionist; suffragist. Instrumental in the founding of numerous women's organizations: Free Religious Association with Lucretia Mott, 1867; American Suffrage Association with Lucy Stone, 1869; Women's International Peace Association, 1871.

• 1875 Esther Loeb Kohn born Chicago, IL (d. 1965). American social reformer. 30-year resident of Hull House, which she managed in Jane Addams' absence. Pacifist delegate to WILPF Conference, Vienna, 1921.

• 1881 Hilda Clark born Somerset, England (d. 1955). Quaker; physician. Founded Friends War Victims Relief, 1914; spearheaded Friends Relief Mission Austria, 1919-22; worked with Greek refugees; involved with WILPF & Women's Peace Crusade.

• 1909 Barbro Alving born Uppsala, Sweden (d. 1987). Pacifist; war correspondent; reported on Spanish Civil War, Finnish Winter War, Vietnam. Leader against nuclear weapons; jailed for refusal to participate in civil defense; WILPF member.

• 1950 Sheila Jackson-Lee born Queens, NY. US Representative, 1995. Opposed Iraq War; arrested at Sudan embassy for Darfur protest, 2006; led opposition to Afghan war.

• 1958 Christiane Amanpour born London, England. International journalist; critic of Iraq War.

• 1963 Cheri Honkala born Minneapolis, MN. Vice-presidential candidate for Green Party, 2012, winning 469,504 votes. Organized 300-mile March of the Americas poor DC to UN, Oct. 1999. Ran for sheriff of Philadelphia, opposing foreclosure evictions, 2011.

Women's peacemaking on this day

• 1998 Louise Frèchette was appointed first Deputy Secretary General of the UN, the highest rank ever achieved by a woman in an international organization.

• 2004 30th meeting of UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). 175 nations ratified this international bill of rights for women—despite signing, the US has still not ratified it.

• 2009 In Derry, Northern Ireland, nine women chained themselves inside a Raytheon office to protest arms sent to Israel to bomb Gaza.

January 13

Women peacemakers born today

• 1810 Ernestine Rose born Piotrkow Trybunalski, Poland (d. 1892). American Jewish abolitionist and suffragist. Founded utopian human rights organization Association of All Classes of All Nations, 1835.

• 1865 Theodora Wilson Wilson born Kendal, Cumbria, England (d. 1941). English absolute pacifist; Quaker. Leader of war resisters. Author of 62 books, novels, and religious stories. Early member of Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR); founding member of WILPF.

• 1866 Emilia Broomé born Jönköping, Sweden (d. 1925). Founded Swedish Women's Peace Organization, 1898; WILPF leader; first woman in Swedish national legislature, 1914.

• 1888 Gertrude Carman Bussey born New York, NY (d. 1961). Philosophy professor; WILPF international president, 1949-52; author of WILPF organizational history, 1965.

• 1919 Celia M. Hunter born Arlington, WA (d. 2001). Quaker environmentalist and conservationist; woman pilot of warplanes during World War II. Assisted with postwar rebuilding in Finnish Lapland; won highest awards of Sierra Club and Wilderness Society.

• 1947 Jill Ann Boskey born Newark, NJ (d. 1999). Antiwar activist and attorney. Led 5 Women Against Daddy Warbucks in shredding draft files at Rockefeller Center, 1969. Member of Students for Democratic Society. Co-founded feminist Diana Press, Baltimore.

• 1949 Manuela Dviri born Padua, Italy. Italian-Israeli peace activist; author and playwright. Protested war after the death of her soldier son, 1998; received Peres Award for Peace and Reconciliation for saving Palestinian children, 2005.

• 1967 Masha Gessen born Moscow. Russian-American activist and journalist; chronicler of nonviolent protests.

• 1968 Farah Pandith born Srinigar, India. Appointed first US State Dept. Special Representative to Muslim Communities, 2009.

• 1976 Nariman Tamimi born Palestine. Nonviolent resister to Israeli occupation at Nabi Saleh; repeatedly arrested and beaten.

Women's peacemaking on this day

• 1897 Mrs. R.C. Alexander rescued Gandhi from mob, Durban.

• 1915 First meeting of Fellowship of Reconciliation, London. Lucy Gardner served as Secretary.

• 1919 22 suffragettes arrested in Watchfire protest, Washington DC.

• 2013 22 South Korean women’s groups declared: “We want a nuclear-free peaceful world. . . Nuclear security must start with the elimination of nuclear weapons.”

• 2013 Artist Coco Fusco performed antiwar piece “Observations of Predations in Humans: A Lecture by Dr. Zira, Animal Psychologist” at Studio Museum, Harlem, NY.

• 2014 Syrian women demanded peace at Geneva. “We cannot remain silent regarding events in Syria, such as daily death, massive destruction, starvation, displacement of hundreds of thousands of families.”

January 14

Women peacemakers born today

• 1858 Hannah Greenebaum Solomon born Chicago, IL (d. 1942). Social reformer; associate of Jane Addams; member of WILPF. Organized World's Parliament of Religions, 1890; delegate to International Council of Women, 1904.

• 1872 Kerstin Hesselgren born Torsåker, Sweden (d. 1962). Called "Kerstin the First": first woman elected to upper house of Swedish parliament, 1922. Delegate to ILO, 1919; Swedish delegate to the League of Nations; opposed Italy's war on Ethiopia, 1935; member of first international committee on status of women, 1937.

• 1872 Eugenie Meller-Miskolczy born Budapest, Hungary (d. 1944/5). Hungarian Jewish feminist leader; suffragist; writer; pacifist; opposed WWI; active in WILPF. Arrested and sent to Kistarcsa concentration camp, July 1944. Denounced the Council of the League of Nations as ineffective and "[A]n imperialist corporation of the Great Powers."

• 1938 Dorothy Zellner born New York, NY. Feminist; peace advocate; civil rights activist; actively opposed Israeli occupation and Gaza War. Ran New England Regional Office of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC); co-editor of its newsletter Student Voice; arrested at CORE demonstration in Miami, 1960; SNCC staff member in Mississippi, summer 1964.

• 1941 Mahnaz Afkhami born Kerman, Iran. Human rights activist; Iran's first Minister of Women's Affairs, 1976-78. Founded Women's Learning Partnership for Rights, Development, and Peace (WLP), 2000.

• 1942 Carol Bellamy born Plainfield, NJ. Director of Peace Corps, 1993; Executive Director of UNICEF, 1995; first president of Lawyers Committee to End the War.

• 1972 Immaculée Ilibagiza born Mataba, Kibuye, Rwanda. Tutsi survivor of genocide 1994; stared down man with machete; forgave mother’s and brothers’ killers; Gandhi Award for Reconciliation and Peace 2007.

Women's peacemaking on this day

• 1918 Emma Goldman fined and sentenced to two years prison for obstruction of the draft.

• 1968 Jeanette Rankin Brigade began meetings, kickstarting women's peace activism.

• 1991 200 women on the Women's Ship for Peace brought aid to Iraq. Iowa City council member Karen Kuby arrested for Gulf War protest.

• 2004 Joan Wile began weekly protest against Iraq War at Rockefeller Center, beginning the Granny Peace Brigade.

January 15

Women peacemakers born today

• 1810 Abby Kelley Foster born Pelham, MA (d. 1887). Quaker orator; tax resister; abolitionist; suffragist. Co-founded world's first nonviolent society, the New England Non-Resistance Society.

• 1860 Katharine Bement Davis born Buffalo, NY (d. 1935). Economist; penal reformer; acclaimed for Sicily earthquake relief, 1909; opponent of international white slave trade.

• 1883 Kathleen Innes born Reading, England (d. 1967). Quaker; British WILPF leader; WILPF international co-chair, 1937; author and speaker on League of Nations and disarmament.

• 1914 Sylvia Johnstone Easton born Alberta, Canada (d. 1990). Human rights leader; advocate for aboriginal Canadians and the homeless.

• 1925 Mirta Acuña de Barravalle born Argentina. Human rights activist; one of founding 14 Mothers of the Plaza of May 1977 whose pregnant daughter disappeared; also founder of Grandmothers of the Plaza.

• 1945 Concepcion Picciotto born Vigo, Spain (d. 2016). Maintained the longest-running US peace vigil, located outside the White House, from 1981 until her death.

Women's peacemaking on this day

• 1921 Harriot Stanton Blatch led the New England Women's Club to declare resolution, "[T]he commanding cause of ours is the war against war."

• 1962 Ruth Gage-Colby organized the first, and largest, international protest by Women Strike for Peace, as 3,000 women marched in the rain to White House.

• 1965 Quebec-Guantanamo Walkers, including Barbara Deming, released from Albany, GA jail after nonviolent protest.

• 1968 5,000 women of Jeannette Rankin Brigade march on Washington, DC in, "call to American women to end the Vietnam War."

• 1969 In New York, 1,000 Women Strike for Peace members picketed the Hotel Pierre, demanding that Nixon stop the war.

• 1983 44 Greenham women sentenced to 14 days jail for dancing on missile silos.

• 2006 Michelle Bachelet elected president of Chile.

January 16

Women peacemakers born today

• 1825 Emily Gardner Phenis born Union County, Indiana (d. 1906). Quaker schoolteacher and reformer; radical non-resistant abolitionist; vegetarian. Opposed all use of force.

• 1900 Adelaide Sinclair born Toronto, Canada (d. 1982). UN Canadian diplomat, 1947; UNICEF Deputy Director, 1957-1967.

• 1933 Susan Sontag born New York, NY (d.2004). Essayist; opposed Vietnam War, made trip to Hanoi, 1967; lived in Sarajevo during siege, 1993.

• 1914 Ruth Stamm Dear born Bronx, NY. Radical Unitarian; pacifist; active in War Resisters League & Grey Panthers; took part in first civil disobedience at age of 71, 1985.

• 1938 Helga Hernes born Deutsch-Krone, West Prussia (now Wałcz, Poland). Norwegian diplomat, cabinet member, and expert on women's issues. Two-time State Secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs with Gro Brundtland, 1988-89, 1990-93; Norwegian ambassador to Austria, Slovakia, and Switzerland; advisor at Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO), 2005-present.

• 1942 Nicole Fontaine born Normandy, France. First female president of European Parliament, 1999-2001.

• 1964 Merlie “Milet” Mendoza born Philippines. Peacemaker. Joined Office of Peace Commissioner 1991. coordinated Culture of Peace program Sulu 2005; Peace and Human Security program in Basilan and Sulu 2002; assisted humanitarian relief, Mindanao, 2001. division chief Peace Consultation program 1994; Director Office of Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process 1993; deputy peace commissioner 1989; kidnapped for two months, Basilan, 2008. Joan Kroc Woman Peacemaker, 2010.

Women's peacemaking on this day

• 1907 Jane Addams published Newer Ideals of Peace.

• 1958 Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament founded on women's initiative.

• 1966 In Oakland, CA, Joan Baez jailed at Vietnam War protest.

• 1982 In Minneapolis, Polly Mann and Marianne Hamilton founded Women Against Nuclear Madness.

• 1992 Adelita Medina led Military Families Support Network in White House peace vigil to help soldiers affected by trauma of Gulf War.

• 2002 Statute of Sierra Leone War Crimes Tribunal included rape as crime against humanity.

January 17

Women peacemakers born today

• 1853 Alva Belmont born Mobile, AL (d. 1933). Women's rights activist; multi-millionaire; with Alice Paul, founded and led National Women's Party, 1916; supported first picket of White House.

• 1885 Emmy Hennings born Flensburg, Schleswig, Germany (d. 1948). Anti-war poet; famed cabaret performer. Fled to Zurich to found antiwar Dada movement.

• 1904 Irene Mensalves born Ft. Wayne, IN. Quaker pacifist; at age of 103, protested against Iraq War with Granny Peace Brigade, Baltimore 2007.

• 1945 Jeanette Fitzsimons born Dunedin, New Zealand. Environmentalist; first woman co-leader Green Party; member of parliament, 1996-2010. Founded Campaign for Climate Change; introduced bill to extend prohibition of nuclear weapons.

• 1950 Janice Sevre-Duszynska born Kentucky. Catholic priest; peace activist; arrested twice 2016 for peace protests at Pentagon; arrested for Rivers of Blood protest at Capitol 2017; arrested 2015 for nonviolent protests at Vatican and DC.

Women's peacemaking on this day

• 1908 Suffragettes chained themselves to the British Prime Minister's office at 10 Downing St. while chanting, "Deeds not words."

• 1977 Aline Boccardo founded Women for Peace, Lucerne.

• 1987 At Cape Canaveral, FL, 5,000 protested the initial test launch of the Trident II missile.

• 2014 Syrian women heard by UN Security Council. “We want peace and we want to be part of it.”

• 2016 “Securing Women’s Rights through Gender Equality and Silencing the Guns of Africa” conference Addis Ababa.

January 18

Women peacemakers born today

• 1882 Anna Siemsen born Westphalia, Germany (d. 1952). German; professor; peace educator; member of WILPF. Protested World Wars I and II; voted against military expansion as Socialist pacifist member of Reichstag, 1928-30; exiled from Germany, 1933; worked for European unity after WWII.

• 1910 Edna Ramseyer Kaufman born Wayne County, OH (d. 2001). Pacifist college professor and dean who opposed “the Good War” (WWII); got women into Civilian Public Service; aided Spanish refugee children Marseille 1940.

• 1930 Maria de Lourdes Pintasilgo born Abrantes, Portugal (d. 2004). Chemical engineer; Portuguese ambassador to UNESCO, 1975; Portuguese Prime Minister, 1979; first female candidate for Portuguese presidency, 1986; member of European Parliament, 1987; signatory of leaders' declaration on abolition of nuclear weapons, 1998.

• 1949 Penny Rosenwasser. American Jewish peace activist; author, folk musician; organizer. Co-founded Jewish Voice for Peace, 1996.

• 1952 Rita Thapa born Kathmandu, Nepal Peacemaker. Served as mediator during Maoist insurgency, 2001. Founded Nagarik Aawaz (“The Voice of the Citizen”) for conflict transformation and peacebuilding, 2001. Ashoka Fellow, 1998; Nobel Peace Prize nominee, 2005.

• 1957 Roberta Metsola Tedesco Triccas born St. Julian’s, Malta. Maltese lawyer specializing in European law; involved in drafting European constitution 2004, Lisbon Treaty 2007; legal adviser to first European Foreign Minister Catherine Ashton 2012-4; member European Parliament 2013; co-author of report on refugee crisis 2016.

Women's peacemaking on this day

• 1867 Lucretia Mott co-founded Pennsylvania Peace Society.

• 1968 Eartha Kitt spoke out against the Vietnam War at White House luncheon.

• 1982 Greenham women "keened" in wordless protest outside Houses of Parliament.

• 2001 Barbara River and Sylvia Boyes acquitted of trying to damage HMS Vengeance at Barrow-in-Furness in 1999 Trident Protest.

• 2003 67-year-old Angela Broome arrested for painting bloody protest sign on Northwood Military Base, England.

• 2003 Two women in pink protested against war outside White House.

• 2004 World Court of Women on U.S. War Crimes, Mumbai, India.

January 19

Women peacemakers born today

• 399 Pulcheria born Constantinople (d. 453). Empress of Eastern Roman Empire; influenced peace with Attila the Hun, 450.

• 1856 Margaret Ashton born Withington, Manchester, England (d. 1937). Suffragist; pacifist. First woman to serve as City Councilor, Manchester, 1908. Barred from attending Hague Women's Peace Conference, 1915; founding member of WILPF.

• 1940 Mary Burton born Buenos Aires, Argentina. Commissioner of South African Truth & Human Rights, 1995; Head of Black Sash 1986-90.

• 1951 Phyllis Bennis born Los Angeles, CA. American journalist and author; peace activist; opponent of Israeli occupation and Gaza war; began activism opposing Vietnam War, supporting Civil Rights movement, 1969. Head of New Internationalism Project at Institute for Policy Studies (IPS); founded U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, 2002; opposed US imperialism, esp. Iraq and Afghan Wars, Libya intervention, ISIS bombing.

• 1952 Helen Mack Chang born Retalhuleu, Guatemala. Human rights activist; challenged Guatemalan justice system.

• 1953 Sylvia Steiner born Saõ Paulo, Brazil. Judge of International Criminal Court, 2002; presiding judge over war crimes trial of Jean-Pierre Bemba for charges of mass rape in Central African Republic.

Women's peacemaking on this day

• 1843 Dorothea Dix presented Memorial to the Legislature of Massachusetts on treatment of the insane in state facilities.

• 1915 In Stockholm, Anna Whitlock assumed leadership of Central Committee for Women’s Peace meetings.

• 1981 Women marched around the White House, marking revival of feminist militancy.

• 2015 NGO WoMin held South African exchange "Women Stand their Ground Against Big Coal" in Stay City, Berea, Johannesburg.

January 20

Women peacemakers born today

• 1856 Harriot Stanton Blatch born Seneca Falls, NY (d. 1940). Unitarian suffragist; socialist. Began public protests for vote, 1907.

• 1876 Jessie F. Binford born Marshalltown, IA (d. 1966). Chicago-based juvenile rights advocate; 61-year resident of Hull House. Co-founded Jane Addams Peace Association, 1948.

• 1887 Rebecca Shelley born Sugar Valley, PA (d. 1994). Absolute pacifist, militant suffragist, and peace activist. Green Party leader. Attended Hague Women’s Peace Conference, leading to formation of WILPF, 1915. Vice-presidential candidate on pacifist write-in ticket, 1964.

• 1907 Lina Haag born Gschwend, Baden-Württemberg, Germany (d. 2012). German resistance leader; communist. Twice imprisoned, 1933, 1933-38.

• 1923 Amy Swerdlow born New York, New York (d. 2012). Peace advocate. Co-founded Women Strike for Peace, 1961; historian of Women Strike for Peace.

• 1956 Valentina Cherevatenko born Donetsk, USSR. Russian human rights activist. Founded Women of the Don Region to promote human rights and peace by nonviolent means, 1993. Actively helped postwar victims of trauma in Chechnya and Donetsk. Received Anna Politkovskaya Award, 2016.

• 1982 Larissa Shasko born Regina, Saskatoon, Canada. Canadian politician; anti-nuclear activist. Leader of Green Party of Saskatchewan, 2009-11.

Women's peacemaking on this day

• 1947 Muslim woman Bibi Amtussalam ended 25-day fast for nonviolence with signature pledging community harmony in India with support of Gandhi.

• 1960 Artist Eroseanna Robinson arrested in Chicago for tax refusal. "I have not filed income taxes because I know that a large part of the tax will be used for militarization. . . We have a duty to contribute constructively to life, and not destructively."

• 1963 Gloria Richardson started the Cambridge Nonviolent Action Committee (CNAC), beginning the Cambridge Movement.

• 1979 In response to the Mathura rape case, 40 women founded the Forum Against Rape (later Forum Against the Oppression of Women), Mumbai, India.

• 2009 Women from the Naga community in the village of Shirui formed a human shield against Indian Security Forces in a stand-off which would continue for two weeks.

• 2014 Women Lead to Peace Summit on Syria Monteaux, Switzerland through 22nd.