| 2023 |
Simone Biles |
Most decorated gymnast of all time (as of 2023) |
| 2022 |
Erin Jackson |
First African American woman to win Olympic gold in speed skating |
| 2022 |
Michaela Jae Rodriguez |
First transgender woman to win a Golden Globe Award |
| 2021 |
Maia Chaka |
First African American official in the NFL |
| 2021 |
Emerald Fennell and Chloe Zhao |
First year that two women were nominated in the Academy Award Best Director category |
| 2021 |
Avril Haines |
First woman to serve as director of National Intelligence |
| 2021 |
Kamala Harris |
First woman, African-American, and Asian-American sworn in as Vice President of the United States |
| 2021 |
Mia Neal and Jamika Wilson |
First African American women to win Academy Award for best makeup and hair |
| 2021 |
Sarah Thomas |
NFL's first permanent female game official, and the first woman to officiate a Super Bowl |
| 2021 |
Janet Yellen |
First woman to serve as Secretary of the Treasury |
| 2020 |
Sarah McBride |
First openly transgender state senator |
| 2019 |
Sharice Davids |
First openly LGBT Native American elected to the US Congress and first openly lesbian person elected to the US Congress from Kansas |
| 2019 |
Joy Harjo |
First Native American United States Poet Laureate |
| 2018 |
Tammy Duckworth |
First Senator to give birth while in office |
| 2016 |
Carla Hayden |
First woman and first African American to be Librarian of Congress |
| 2015 |
Kristen Griest & Shaye Haver |
First women to graduate from the US Army Ranger school |
| 2013 |
Mazie Hirono |
First elected female senator from Hawaii, and the first Asian-American woman elected to the Senate |
| 2012 |
Ellen Ochoa |
First Latinx in space and first Latinx director of the Johnson Space Center |
| 2012 |
Tammy Duckworth |
First woman with a disability elected to Congress |
| 2009 |
Sonia Sotomayor |
First Latina Supreme Court Justice |
| 2008 |
Kathryn Bigelow |
First woman to win Best Director Oscar for The Hurt Locker |
| 2008 |
Cammi Granato |
First woman to be inducted into the International Ice Hockey Hall of Fame |
| 2008 |
Cammi Granato |
First woman to be inducted into the US Hockey Hall of Fame |
| 1998 |
Cammi Granato |
First woman to win gold medal as captain of 1998 U.S. Olympic hockey team |
| 1997 |
Madeleine Albright |
First woman to be Secretary of State |
| 1993 |
Janet Reno |
First woman to be Attorney General of the U.S. |
| 1987 |
Aretha Franklin |
First woman inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame |
| 1987 |
Wilma Mankiller |
First woman elected to serve as Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation |
| 1984 |
Svetlana Savitskaya |
First woman to walk in space |
| 1983 |
Sally Ride |
First American woman in space |
| 1981 |
Sandra Day O'Connor |
First female US Supreme Court Justice |
| 1977 |
Rita Moreno |
First Latina EGOT winner |
| 1975 |
Junko Tabei |
First woman to climb Mt. Everest |
| 1972 |
Shirley Chisholm |
First woman and African American to seek the nomination for President of the US from one of the two major political parties |
| 1968 |
Shirley Chisholm |
First African American woman in Congress |
| 1967 |
Betty Mae Tiger Jumper |
First (and so far the only) female Chief to the Seminole Tribe of Florida |
| 1966 |
Indira Gandhi |
First (and to date, only) female prime minister of India |
| 1966 |
Bobbi Gibb |
First woman to run the entire Boston Marathon |
| 1963 |
Valentina Tereshkova |
First woman in space |
| 1962 |
Rita Moreno |
First Latina to win an Oscar |
| 1953 |
Jackie Cochran |
First woman to break the sound barrier in flight |
| 1933 |
Frances Perkins |
First woman to serve as a Presidential Cabinet Member |
| 1932 |
Amelia Earhart |
First woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean |
| 1921 |
Bessie Coleman |
First woman of African American and Native American descent to hold a pilot's license |
| 1921 |
Edith Wharton |
First woman to win the Pulitzer Prize in fiction |
| 1916 |
Jeannette Rankin |
First woman elected to the US House of Representatives |
| 1903 |
Marie Salomea Skłodowska-Curie |
First woman to win a Nobel Prize |
| 1879 |
Belva Ann Bennett Lockwood |
First woman to argue before the US Supreme Court |
| 1849 |
Elizabeth Blackwell |
First female doctor in the United States |
| 1679 |
Elena Cornaro Piscopia |
First woman to earn a Doctorate Degree |
| 1650 |
Anne Bradstreet |
First published woman author from America |
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