THE ULTIMATE
On this day, May 24th 1930. Amy Johnson gained fame as an aviator for becoming the first woman to fly solo from England to Australia.
She flew from Croydon. England to Darwin in Australia, a trip of 11,000 miles, in her plane Jason. She gained numerous honours for her feat in both Britain and Australia. During the Second World War she served in the Air Transport Auxillary (ATA) where she transported RAF planes across the country the airfields where they would be used to engage the enemy and defend Britain and its allies.
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On this day, May 4th 1979, Margaret Thatcher became the first female Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
She had defeated James Callaghan the Labour leader and Prime Minister, after he had been forced to hold a General Election due to losing a Vote of No Conficdence in the House of Commons. Margaret Thatcher, had been the Conservative Party leader since 1975, and had led a new media style election campaign, most famous for its poster of a unemployed people queuing (a dole queue) to receive unemployment benefit, with the title '1 Million Unemployed - Labour isn't Working'. Margaret Thatcher won three elections in all, in 1979, 1983, and 1987, before resigning in November 1990. She is the longest serving Post-War Prime Minister. Her strong stance in foreign policy, repulsing the Argentinian invasion of the Falkland Islands, and her stand against Communism with US President Ronald Reagan, as well as her negotiations within the EU to gain the UK a rebate, led to her nickname of the 'Iron Lady'. A conviction politician, her policies have been labelled New Right or Thatcherite, by rolling back the state, and reducing dependence on the Welfare State, thus overturning the Post War Consensus that had existed since 1945, so as to free up and stimulate enterprise to kick-start an economy suffering high unemployment and inflation via Laissez-Faire capitalism. Within this approach was the process of privatising nationalised utilitles such as gas and telecommunications, and the sale of Council Houses in the 'Right to Buy' scheme. Her critics emphasise the toll that this approach took on poorer working class communities, who saw a dramatic decline in job opportunities in their community, with little provision to safeguard them from the downside of such policies, as well as her reduction of the rights and power of the Trades Unions. On this day, April 26th 1918, Olympic athlete Fanny Blankers-Koen was born in the Netherlands.
Fanny became the first female athlete to win 4 Olympic Gold medals in a single Olympic Games at the 1948 Olympics in London - being the most successful athlete at the event. Gold - 100m Gold - 200m Gold - 80m Hurdles Gold - 4 X 100m relay Twice she almost failed to start, prior to the 200m final she broke down, homesickness, pressure of competing, and attacks that as a woman and mother that she shouldn't be competing. Whilst, before the relay she had gone to buy a raincoat, only just making the start. At the time she was 30 years old, mother of two, and it was revealed after the event she was also pregnant. She had also participated in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. Although, Fanny specialised in track events at the Olympics due to restrictions as to how many events she could enter, she also particpated in the long jump and high jump, setting world records in these as well! The media nicknamed her 'The Flying Housewife', 'The Flying Dutchmam' and 'Amazing Fanny'. In 1999 the IAAF voted her the 'Female Athlete of the Century'. See the Astronauts and Space Scientists planning the next voyages to the Moon's surface...4/20/2020 Not since the early 1970s has humanity set foot on the Moon, but there are space scientists and astronauts researching into, planning for and training to return - with the hopes of achieving a lunar base in this generation - and the first missions were under tha name of Apollo, NASA's next will be under the name Artemis, Apollo's twin sister, and their are plenty of female astronauts and scientists ready to take the next steps onto the lunar surface...
See Paul Ricon's super BBC article 'To the Moon and Beyond' at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/extra/nkzysaP3pB/to-the-moon-and-beyond |
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