Women peacemakers born today

1872 Mary Sheepshanks born Bilton, Yorkshire, England (d. 1960). Socialist; pacifist; suffragist; feminist. Founding member, WILPF; WILPF International Secretary, 1927-31.
1910 Josephine Wertheim Pomerance born Manhattan, NY (d. 1980). Leader of WILPF; co-founder of SANE, 1957; served on American Association for the UN, 1959; leader of Citizens Committee for a Nuclear Test Ban, 1962.
1940 Barbara Gladysch born during bombing of Düsseldorf, Germany. Founded Mothers for Peace, 1981; founded Children of Chernobyl, 1986; offered aid to refugees of Balkan wars; peace mission to Chechnya, 1996; recipient of Sean MacBride Peace Award, 1999.
1971 Midori Goto born Osaka, Japan. Violinist; UN Messenger of Peace, 2007.
1973 Suheir Hammad born Amman, Jordan. Palestinian-American poet and playwright; Muslim pacifist.

Women's peacemaking on this day

1774 Edenton Tea Party. First organized American women's political action, in support of Boston protests.
1912 Olive Schreiner met Gandhi.
1918 Mollie Steimer given 15-year sentence for opposing World War I.
1955 Death of Sadako Sasaki from leukemia; focus of 1000 cranes for peace.
1975 90 percent of Icelandic women went on general strike in successful demand for equal rights.
1984 International Women's Peace Day declared by Women for Survival Conference, Adelaide.
1993 Marguerite Barankitse began rescuing children from Burundi civil war.
1998 Mothers Action for Peace protest at Oak Ridge nuclear plant; four women arrested for trespassing.
2000 Dutch woman Marjan Willemson and Briton Zoe Weir cut Faslane base fence and hung banner against Trident missiles.
2005 At London's Cenotaph war memorial, Maya Evans was arrested for reading the names of 97 British soldiers killed in Iraq.
2012 Judith Bello arrested for protest against drones at Hancock AFB; jailed eight days. Mary Anne Grady Flores arrested, leading to year in jail for repeated protests.