Euphemia Lofton Haynes is the first black woman to receive a Ph.D. in mathematics.
“Rosie the Riveter” becomes the often-used graphic representation of U.S. women who provide most of the labor to produce the materials necessary for World War II.
Writer and lecturer Ayn Rand publishes her novel The Fountainhead, which is later made into a movie. This book and others she wrote espouse her unique philosophy, objectivism, which she characterized as a “philosophy for living on earth.” Every book Ayn Rand writes during her lifetime is still in print, widely read and influencing later generations.
Photojournalist Georgette “Dicky” Chappelle is one of the few women combat correspondents during World War II, the 1956 Hungarian revolution, the battles of Fidel Castro in Cuba, and the Vietnam conflict (where she was killed in 1965).
Admiral Grace Murray Hopper is a professor of mathematics at Vassar College who is recruited to work on the first computer. Later, she creates the first computer compiler, the software that translates human language into the zeroes and ones that computers understand, paving the way for personal computers. She is also involved in the development of the business computer language COBOL.
Activist, attorney, and ordained minister Pauli Murray overcomes both racial and gender discrimination and becomes the first black woman awarded a law doctorate from Yale. Later, she is the first black female priest ordained by the Episcopal Church.
Actress Angela Lansbury receives her first Oscar nomination for her performance in Gaslight; her entertainment career spans more than sixty years.
Pediatrician and cardiologist Helen Brooke Taussig develops a cardiac catherization operation that solves the often fatal condition known as “blue baby,” saving countless infants.
Nuclear physicist Chien-Shiung Wu works on the Manhattan Project, a secret effort to develop the atom bomb.