1587 Virginia Dare is the first person born in America to English parents (Roanoke Island, N.C.).

1650 Anne Bradstreet's book of poems, The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America, is published in England, making her the first published American woman writer.

1707 Henrietta Johnston begins to work as a portrait artist in Charles Town (now Charleston), South Carolina, making her the first known professional woman artist in America.

1766 Mary Katherine Goddard and her widowed mother become publishers of the Providence Gazette newspaper and the annual West's Almanack, making her the first woman publisher in America. In 1775, Goddard became the first woman postmaster in the country (in Baltimore), and in 1777 she became the first printer to offer copies of the Declaration of Independence that included the signers' names. In 1789 Goddard opened a Baltimore bookstore, probably the first woman in America to do so.

1767 Anne Catherine Hoof Green takes over her late husband's printing and newspaper business, becoming the first American woman to run a print shop. The following year she is named the official printer for the colony of Maryland.

1790 Mother Bernardina Matthews establishes a Carmelite convent near Port Tobacco, Maryland, the first community of Roman Catholic nuns in the Thirteen Colonies. (The Ursuline convent established in New Orleans in 1727 was still in French territory.)

1792 Suzanne Vaillande appears in The Bird Catcher, in New York, the first ballet presented in the U.S. She was also probably the first woman to work as a choreographer and set designer in the United States.

1795 Anne Parrish establishes, in Philadelphia, the House of Industry, the first charitable organization for women in America.

1809 Mary Kies becomes the first woman to receive a patent, for a method of weaving straw with silk.

Elizabeth Ann Seton establishes the first American community of the Sisters of Charity, in Emmitsburg, Maryland. In 1975 she became the first native-born American to be made a saint by the Roman Catholic Church.

1849 Elizabeth Blackwell receives her M.D. degree from the Medical Institution of Geneva, N.Y., becoming the first woman in the U.S. with a medical degree.

1853 Antoinette Blackwell becomes the first American woman to be ordained a minister in a recognized denomination (Congregational).

1869 Arabella Mansfield is granted admission to practice law in Iowa, making her the first woman lawyer. A year later, Ada H. Kepley, of Illinois, graduates from the Union College of Law in Chicago. She is the first woman lawyer to graduate from a law school.

1872 Victoria Claflin Woodhull becomes the first woman presidential candidate in the United States when she is nominated by the National Radical Reformers.

1873 Ellen Swallow Richards, the first woman to be admitted to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, earns her B.S. degree. She becomes the first female professional chemist in the U.S.

1879 Belva Ann Lockwood becomes the first woman admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Mary Baker Eddy establishes the Church of Christ, Scientist, becoming the first woman to found a major religion, Christian Science.

1916 Jeannette Rankin, of Montana, is the first woman to be elected to the U.S. House of Representatives.

1924 Nellie Tayloe Ross becomes the first woman to serve as governor of a state, in Wyoming. She was chosen to succeed her deceased husband, William Bradford Ross. (Miriam Amanda "Ma" Ferguson is inaugurated governor of Texas days later.)

1932 Amelia Earhart becomes the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic, traveling from Harbor Grace, Newfoundland, to Ireland in approximately 15 hours.

1933 Frances Perkins is appointed secretary of Labor by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, making her the first woman member of a presidential cabinet.

1934 Lettie Pate Whitehead becomes the first American woman to serve as a director of a major corporation, The Coca-Cola Company.

1946 Mother Maria Frances Cabrini (1850-1917) is canonized by Pope Pius XII. She is the first U.S. citizen (she was born in Italy) to become a saint.

1960 Jerrie Cobb is the first woman in the U.S. to undergo astronaut testing. NASA, however, cancels the women's program in 1963. It is not until 1983 that an American woman gets sent into space.

1964 Margaret Chase Smith, of Maine, becomes the first woman nominated for president of the United States by a major political party, at the Republican National Convention in San Francisco.

1967 Muriel "Mickey" Siebert becomes the first woman to own a seat on the New York Stock Exchange and the first woman to head one of its member firms.

1981 Sandra Day O'Connor is appointed by President Reagan to the Supreme Court, making her its first woman justice.

1983 Dr. Sally K. Ride becomes the first American woman to be sent into space.

1993 Shiela Widnall becomes the first secretary of a branch of the U.S. military when she is appointed to head the Air Force.

Janet Reno becomes the first woman U.S. Attorney General.

1997 Madeleine Albright is sworn in as U.S. Secretary of State. She is the first woman in this position as well as the highest-ranking woman in the United States government.

1999 Lt. Col. Eileen Collins is the first woman astronaut to command a space shuttle mission.