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December 21

12-21 TABLE of CONTENTS: The World's Best Clay-court Woman Player of All Time DATES, ANNIVERSARIES, and EVENTS QUOTE by Marion Zimmer Bradley. Chris Evert       Born Dec. 21, 1954, Chris Evert, tennis champion, had 125 consecutive clay-court victories and has been called the world's best clay-court woman player of all time.       She was ranked the world's best player 1974 to 1978 and in 1980 and 81.       She started off her career as a young, spoiled golden girl and became a staunch feminist and independent woman.       She was the U.S. singles champion 1975-78, 80, 82; Wimbledon champion 1974, 76, and 81, and won at least one Grand Slam singles title for 13 consecutive years. Between 1973 and 1979 Evert won a record 125 consecutive clay-court matches, and won the French Open on clay a record seven times.       Her French Open mastery blocked her arch-rival Martina Navratilova - the great grass player - from a grand slam sweep. The two women, rivals since their earliest days, became friends when both grew into mature women, and both became staunch supporters of women's rights after acknowledging great guidance from Billie Jean King. | PRIOR DATE |        | HOME |       | WOA INDEX |       | NEXT DATE |   | RETURN TO TOP OF PAGE | 12-21 DATES, ANNIVERSARIES, and EVENTS B. 12-21-1829, Laura Dewey Bridgman, struck deaf and blind at two, she was the first person with her disabilities to be taught successfully. She eventually taught others. She read through a Braille-like system and "spoke" through tapping out an "alphabet." B. 12-21-1860, Henrietta Szold, teacher, helped organize Hebras Zion, probably the first Zionist organization in the U.S., and was founder and first president of Hadassah (1912), founder and first president of the Histadrut Nashim Ivriot, director of the agency to rescue Jewish children from Nazi Germany. B. 12-21-1862, Harriet Bradley Hammond McCormick established the Elizabeth McCormick memorial fund in the name of her dead daughter to improve the conditions of child life in the United States. B. 12-21-1872, Helen Farnsworth Mears, sculptor. Her work is exhibited in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Smithsonian Institute. B. 12-21-1874, Gertrude Battles Lane, editor in chief of Woman's Home Companion from 1912 to 1949. Built it into the leading woman's magazine and the third largest general circulation magazine in the nation. B. 12-21-1892, Dame Rebecca West, British journalist, novelist, and critic. B. 12-21-1902, Phoebe Omlie, a leading pioneer in aviation, set a number of records. B. 12-21-1921(17?), Alicia Alonso (Martinez), Cuban-born ballerina who rose to international fame in dance and teaching in spite of recurring eye problems that limited her movements. B. 12-21-1937, Jane Fonda won Academy Awards for her work in Klute (1971) and Coming Home (1978) and nominated three time mores. Was active in the anti-war movement during the Viet Nam war, producer and star of highly successful physical fitness videos. B. 12-21-1954, Chris Evert, tennis champion who had 125 consecutive clay-court victories and has been considered the world's best clay-court women player of all time. B. 12-21-1959, Florence Griffith-Joyner, winner of three Olympic gold medals in 1988, set world record 200 meters. Her divorced mother raised her by working as a seamstress. | PRIOR DATE |        | HOME |       | WOA INDEX |       | NEXT DATE | | RETURN TO TOP OF PAGE | QUOTES DU JOUR BRADLEY, MARION ZIMMER:       "But that is why the Free Amazons* exist, in the final analysis. So that every woman may, at least, know there is a choice for them...that if they accept the restrictions laid upon women, they may do so from choice and not because they cannot imagine anything else."             -- Marion Zimmer Bradley, The Shattered Chain. (The Free Amazons were an independent-living organization of women who refused to live under the strict patriarchal structure of the fictional Darkover planet.) | PRIOR DATE |        | HOME |       | WOA INDEX |       | NEXT DATE | | RETURN TO TOP OF PAGE |