01-12 TABLE of CONTENTS: Life Expectancies "I am a lesbian," DATES, ANNIVERSARIES, and EVENTS QUOTES by Stacy Allison, Martin Luther, Pope Pius XI, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Pope Leo XIII. U.S. Census Bureau announces:       Event 01-12-1976: The life expectancy for a white woman in the United States became 75.9 years, and for nonwhite women 72 years, according to an announcement by the U.S. Census Bureau. The second half of the 20th century thus marked the first time in recorded history that women were outliving men. Birth control and spaced birthing made the difference...       In 1900, the life expectancy for all women in the U.S. was 40 years, much less than men's primarily because of excessive child birth, which made the average life expectancy of a married woman 35.       According to Roland H. Bainton, professor of church history at Yale Divinity School for 42 years when he published in 1977 Women of the Reformation From Spain to Scandinavia, in the 16th century the average length of life for a woman was 25 years. | PRIOR DATE |        | HOME |       | WOA INDEX |       | NEXT DATE |   | RETURN TO TOP OF PAGE | Navy Lt. Zoe Dunning       Navy Lt. Zoe Dunning declared "I am a lesbian," at a 1993 rally but the Navy board which heard her case in November, 1994 believed her when she said her statement was that of orientation and not of actions that were contrary to the military code. Words of encouragement came from much decorated veteran, Col. Margarethe Cammermeyer who won a court battle for reinstatement to the National Guard after declaring she was a lesbian.       Dunning was the fourth gay person allowed to stay in service after the "don't ask, don't tell" policy went into effect after Congress blocked Clinton's attempt to drop all bans against gays in the military. (The battle to block the Clinton policy in Congress was led by Georgia Senator Sam Nunn and aided by his fellow-Georgian Newt Gingrich.) | PRIOR DATE |        | HOME |       | WOA INDEX |       | NEXT DATE |   | RETURN TO TOP OF PAGE | 01-12 DATES, ANNIVERSARIES, and EVENTS Died 01-12-1554, Lady Jane Grey in one of the saddest stories of English history. When she was only 15, the young and sickly Edward VI was persuaded to name his cousin Jane his successor in preference to his half sisters, Mary and Elizabeth, who were direct descendants of their common father Henry VIII. The plot was hatched by the duke of Northumberland, who then married Lady Jane to his son and then proclaimed her queen in July 1553 at Edward's death. However, within nine days, the true successor Mary Tudor secured the throne as Mary I and then beheaded both Lady Jane and her husband. Lady Jane was totally innocent in the plot and actually fainted when informed of the maneuvering. B. 01-12-1836, Arabella Goddard, French concert pianist. B. 01-12-1864, Anna Eugenie Schoen-Rene, noted music teacher at Juilliard School of Music, taught Rise Stevens and Paul Robeson among others. Her memoir is American's Musical Inheritance (1941). B. 01-12-1884, Mary Louise Cecilia Guinan, after a film career of more than 200 two-reelers, she became the wisecracking star of speakeasies during prohibition with her trademark, "Hello, sucker!" B. 01-12-1887, Theresa Helburn, theatrical producer, for more than 30 years with the Theatre Guild and became more powerful and more influential than any American woman had ever been in the stage production of drama. As executive director, she oversaw the production of more than a hundred Theatre Guild productions including John Ferguson, its first hit in 1919, through The Philadelphia Story (1939) to Oklahoma! She constantly fought censorship of theatre. Her mother conducted an experimental primary school in their home that stressed literary and cultural attainments. B. 01-12-1912, Luise Rainer, American film actor, won two successive Academy Awards for her starring roles in The Ziegfeld Follies (1936) and The Good Earth (1937). Event 01-12-1932: Although originally appointed to succeed her husband, a U. S. Senator from Arkansas, Hattie Caraway becomes the first woman elected to the U.S. Senate in a candidacy that really upset the state's politicians - and then she was reelected in 1938, serving 13 years in all. B. 01-12-1948, Anna Ko¢s, Hungarian-American film maker and writer won the off-Broadway Obie award in 1978 and 1982. Her film Tongue in a Bottle (1987) was named the best U.S. short film 1988. Event 01-12-1948, The U.S. Supreme Court ordered the State of Oklahoma to provide Ada Lois Fisher, a Negro, with the same education is offered white students. Five days later the Supreme Court of Oklahoma ruled the state must establish a separate but equal law school for Fisher who had been barred from entering the University of Oklahoma Law School because of her color. B. 01-12-1950, Sheila Jackson-Lee, American judge and U. S. Congressional Representative from Texas. SLJ was Associate Judge, Houston Municipal Court, 1987-89, member Houston City Council 1990-94, Member 104th Congress from 18th Texas District, House of Representative 1995-. Event 01-12-1985, Commodore Roberta Hazard, becomes the first woman commander of the nation's largest naval training facility, the Naval Training Center, Great Lakes, Illinois. | PRIOR DATE |        | HOME |       | WOA INDEX |       | NEXT DATE |   | RETURN TO TOP OF PAGE | QUOTES DU JOUR ALLISON, STACY:       "I had to realize that self-worth isn't built upon one's accomplishments. It's built through years of setting goals and reaching them."             -- Stacy Allison after she scaled Mt. Everest on her second attempt. LUTHER, MARTIN:       "If a woman grows weary and at last dies from childbearing, it matters not. Let her only die from bearing; she is there to do it."             -- Protestant reformer, Martin Luther (1483-1546). PIUS XI:       "Any use whatsoever of matrimony exercised in such a way that the act is deliberately frustrated in its natural power to generate life is an offense against the law of God and of nature, and those who indulge in such are branded with the guilt of a grave sin... However we may pity the mother whose health and even life is imperiled by the performance of her natural duty, there yet remains no sufficient reason for condoning the direct murder of the innocent..."             -- Pope Pius XI: Casti Connubii, 12-31-1930 STANTON, ELIZABETH CADY:       "Throughout this protracted and disgraceful assault on American womanhood the clergy baptized each new insult and act of injustice in the name of the Christian religion and uniformly asked God's blessing on proceedings that would have put to shame an assembly of Hottentots."             -- Elizabeth Cady Stanton. LEO XIII:       "Inequality of rights and power proceeds from the very author of nature, from whom all paternity in heaven and earth is named."             -- Pope Leo XIII; Quod Apostolici Muneria, 1878 | PRIOR DATE |        | HOME |       | WOA INDEX |       | NEXT DATE |   | RETURN TO TOP OF PAGE |