JANUARY 22: TODAY'S INSPIRING WOMEN

Elizabeth Blackwell

In 1849, Elizabeth Blackwell became the first woman in America to receive a medical degree, from Medical Institution of Geneva, NY.

Gisela Januszewska

Gisela Januszewska was an Austrian physician born in 1867. After earning a degree in Switzerland, she briefly worked in Germany before becoming the first female physician in Banja Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina. She received highest decorations for her service during the First World War and social activism in Austria afterwards. She was later deported to a Nazi concentration camp, where she died during the Second World War.

MAdeleine Albright

In 1997, the U.S. Senate confirmed Madeleine Albright as the first woman U.S. Secretary of State.

On this date in 1973, the US Supreme Court handed down the Roe v. Wade decision, which affirmed the right to abortion with restrictions. The case was argued by Texas lawyers Sarah Weddington and Linda Coffee, who were 26 and 29, respectively, when they presented it to the nation’s highest court.

Roe v. Wade

DEEPER DIVE

Elizabeth Blackwell's medical school admission was intended as a joke by the college -- and she continued to face discrimination and obstacles once she arrived on campus. In fact, professors would force her to sit separately at lectures and often excluded her from labs. Despite the obstacles, she graduated first in her class in 1849. Learn more about her life at the National Women's History Museum.