American basketball player Candace Parker
Credit: © SPP Sport Press Photo/Alamy Images

March is Women’s History Month, an annual observance of women’s achievements and contributions to society. This month, Behind the Headlines will feature woman pioneers in a variety of areas.

Candace Parker is an outstanding American women’s basketball player. Parker, a forward, is tall for a female player at 6 feet 4 inches (193 centimeters). She became the first woman to dunk in a National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) basketball game and then the first to dunk twice in a single NCAA game. Parker is known for her ability to control the game through offense, often leading in points and rebounds.

Candace Nicole Parker was born on April 19, 1986, in St. Louis, Missouri. Her family later moved to Naperville, Illinois. She was a star player at Naperville Central High School, leading her team to state championships in 2003 and 2004. Parker committed to play at the University of Tennessee in 2004. She played for Team USA on the U18 (under age 18) team that won the gold medal at the International Basketball Federation (FIBA) Americas Championship. In 2006, Parker joined the Women’s Senior National Team. The next year, she led the team to win the FIBA Americas Championship, qualifying it for the 2008 Summer Olympics.

Parker redshirted her first season at the University of Tennessee due to a knee injury. A so-called redshirt player limits their participation in a sport to avoid losing a year of eligibility. Parker helped lead the University of Tennessee to women’s NCAA basketball championships in 2007 and 2008. In both seasons, she led the team in points and rebounds and was named the Most Valuable Player (MVP) of the tournament’s Final Four phase.

The Los Angeles Sparks of the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) made Parker the first player selected in the 2008 WNBA draft. She became the first player to be named the WNBA’s MVP and Rookie of the Year in the same year, for the 2008 season. Parker was named MVP again in 2013. The Los Angeles Sparks defeated the Minnesota Lynx to claim the 2016 WNBA title. Parker scored 28 points and grabbed (caught) 12 rebounds in the final game. She was named the Finals MVP for the tournament. In 2021, Parker signed a two-year contract with the WNBA’s Chicago Sky. That season, she led the team to win the WNBA title against the Phoenix Mercury. In 2023, Parker signed a contract to play for the WNBA’s Las Vegas Aces.

Parker has also played in professional leagues in China and Russia, winning numerous league titles and individual awards. She played on United States teams that won gold medals in international competitions, including the 2008 and 2012 Summer Olympic Games.

American poet Ada Limón
Credit: Shawn Miller, Library of Congress

March is Women’s History Month, an annual observance of women’s achievements and contributions to society. This month, Behind the Headlines will feature woman pioneers in a variety of areas.

Pioneers venture into unknown territories and uncharted waters. A genuine poetry pioneer, Ada Limón has found new ways to interact with readers and big emotions. Limón was named poet laureate of the United States in 2022. The poet laureate is appointed by the librarian of Congress and works to increase the national appreciation and awareness of poetry. Limón, who is of Mexican American heritage, was the first Hispanic American woman chosen for the position. She succeeded the American poet and musician Joy Harjo, who was the poet laureate from 2019 to 2022.

Limon’s style is melodic and accessible. The images in her poetry often embrace the natural world, in which she frequently finds a sense of wonder. The librarian of Congress Carla Hayden praised Limon’s poems for exploring “the beauty and heartbreak that is living, in ways that help us move forward.”

Limon’s first poetry collections were Lucky Wreck and This Big Fake World: A Story in Verse (both 2006). Her third collection, Sharks in the Rivers (2010), considers the possibility of embracing change and finding beauty in a risky, ever-changing world. Bright Dead Things (2015) deals with carrying on and preserving one’s identity in the face of loss and alienation. Her poetry collections also include The Carrying (2018) and The Hurting Kind (2022).

Ada Limón was born on March 28, 1976, in Sonoma, California. She completed a B.A. degree in drama at the University of Washington in 1998. She earned an M.F.A. degree in creative writing from New York University in 2001. She worked in marketing for magazine firms in New York City, before she began writing full time in 2010.

In 2014, Limón began teaching in the M.F.A. program of Queens University of Charlotte, in North Carolina. She often gives readings of her poetry. In 2021 and 2022, she was the host of the poetry podcast called “The Slowdown,” which offers a few moments of reflection through the reading of a poem each weekday. The podcast was launched in 2019 by the poet Tracy K. Smith during her term as poet laureate of the United States.

Mikaela Shiffrin is a champion American alpine skier. Shiffrin won the slalom gold medal at the 2014 Winter Olympic Games, making her the youngest slalom champion in Olympic history. In 2018, she won the giant slalom gold medal at the Winter Olympic Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea. She has also won the slalom world championship several times.
Credit: © Stefan Holm, Shutterstock

March is Women’s History Month, an annual observance of women’s achievements and contributions to society. This month, Behind the Headlines will feature woman pioneers in a variety of areas.

On Saturday, March 11, 2023, American Alpine skier Mikaela Shiffrin won her 87th World Cup race in Slovenia. Shiffrin broke Swedish skier Ingemar Stenmark’s record for most career World Cup victories. Her record-breaking victory occurred 12 years after her first World Cup win at 15. She completed the course hundredths of a second faster than her opponents, securing her place as one of the greatest skiers of all time.

Shiffrin was born on March 13, 1995, in Vail, Colorado. She began skiing at the age of 3. Her family moved to New Hampshire when she was 8. Shiffrin graduated in 2013 from Burke Mountain Academy in Vermont, a high school for young skiers. In 2011, she made her World Cup debut at the age of 15, winning the bronze medal at Lienz, Austria. Later that year, at the age of 16, she won the slalom title at the United States National Championships in Winter Park, Colorado. She thus became the youngest skier to win that event. Slalom skiing involves racing down a winding course with flags. In 2012, she won her first World Cup race and was named World Cup Rookie of the Year.

Shiffrin won the slalom gold medal at the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia, making her the youngest slalom champion in Olympic history. In 2018, she won the giant slalom gold medal and the combined silver medal at the Winter Olympic Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea. She also won the slalom World Championship in 2013, 2015, 2017, and 2019; the super G World Championship in 2019; the combined World Championship in 2021; and the giant slalom World Championship in 2023. Shiffrin has won more world championship titles (7) than any other American skier.

The slalom, giant slalom, and super G are three of the skiing races that make up the Alpine World Cup. The cup is awarded annually to the men and women who have won the most points in a series of five races—the slalom, giant slalom, downhill, super G, and combined. Shiffrin initially concentrated on the slalom and giant slalom. She won the World Cup slalom title in 2013, 2014, 2015, 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2023. In 2019 and 2023, she also won the World Cup giant slalom title. In 2016, she began competing in the other three World Cup events. Shiffrin won the World Cup super G title in 2019. She won the overall World Cup title in 2017, 2018, 2019, 2022, and 2023 for earning the most combined points in all the events. In 2022, Shiffrin won her 47th World Cup slalom race, setting the record for most career World Cup victories in a single event.

Katie Bouman is known for her work in compiling the first images of an event horizon—the “surface” of a black hole.
Credit: © Caltech

March is Women’s History Month, an annual observance of women’s achievements and contributions to society. This month, Behind the Headlines will feature woman pioneers in a variety of areas.

Women achieve great things around the world every day. However, not many women craft an algorithm to create the first-ever picture of a black hole. American computer scientist Katie Bouman worked on compiling the first images of an event horizon—the “surface” of a black hole. A black hole is a region of space whose gravitational force is so strong that nothing can escape from it. At the event horizon, the pull of gravity becomes so strong that nothing known can escape. Capturing the event horizon was considered an amazing feat of astronomical imaging. Bouman has helped us understand the universe’s greatest mystery.

Katherine Louise Bouman was born May 9, 1989, in West Lafayette, Indiana. While in high school, she volunteered at Purdue University, conducting imaging research. She attended the University of Michigan from 2007 to 2011, where she graduated summa cum laude (with highest distinction) with a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering. She received her Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering and computer science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 2017.

Bouman joined the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) project in 2013. The EHT is a global network of ground-based telescopes established to produce images of black hole event horizons. At MIT, she worked to develop the mathematical framework used to assemble images of black holes from radio telescope data. She led the development of the Continuous High-Resolution Image Reconstruction using Patch priors (CHIRP) algorithm. An algorithm is a step-by-step mathematical procedure, often carried out by a computer. The CHIRP algorithm takes images of one object from multiple sources and uses computer vision techniques to produce a single sharper image of the object. Computer vision is the use of computers to recognize patterns in images, a major topic in artificial intelligence.

In 2017, radio telescopes participating in the EHT project observed the M87 galaxy. The following year, Bouman headed one of the four EHT teams that used the data gathered to produce possible images of the supermassive black hole astronomers suspected to be at the center of M87, called M87*. Two teams, including Bouman’s, used algorithms similar to CHIRP. Two other teams used an algorithm traditionally used in radio astronomy. The teams then checked their images against one another.

In 2019, EHT released the combined image of M87*. At that time, two photographs of Bouman garnered significant media attention. The first showed her reaction as her team’s results were compiled for the first time. The second showed her posing with the hard drives of data used to compile the image of M87*. This photograph drew comparisons to a 1969 image of the American computer scientist Margaret Hamilton standing next to a stack of volumes containing the printed computer code for the Apollo lunar missions.

Celia Cruz was born in Cuba and became internationally famous for her powerful voice, her exciting live performances, and her colorful costumes.
Credit: AP/Wide World

March is Women’s History Month, an annual observance of women’s achievements and contributions to society. This month, Behind the Headlines will feature woman pioneers in a variety of areas.

The Queen of Salsa will become the first Afro-Latina to appear on the United States quarter. As part of the American Women Quarters Program, Cuban-born singer Celia Cruz will be smiling back from quarters soon. Cruz is considered the greatest female singer in the salsa style of music.

Salsa is a style of Latin dance music that blends a variety of African and Spanish elements. The term salsa is Spanish for sauce, perhaps referring to the hot, spicy character of the music. Salsa is rooted in Cuban music of the early 1900’s, especially a style call son. Cuban immigrants carried son to the United States. There, it absorbed elements of Puerto Rican music as well as jazz and rock music, especially in the 1960’s and 1970’s. At this time, the resulting musical blend became known as salsa. Salsa music incorporates many different instruments, including bass, piano, trombone, trumpet, and several types of percussion instruments.

Popularly known as la Reina de la Salsa (the Queen of Salsa), Cruz performed for more than 50 years in both Cuba and the United States. Cruz became internationally famous for her powerful voice, her exciting scat singing (singing wordless syllables instead of lyrics), her colorful costumes, and her skill at engaging the audience during her performance. She recorded more than 70 albums.

Cruz was born in Havana, Cuba, on Oct. 21, 1925. Her full name was Ursula Hilaria Celia Caridad Cruz Alfonso. She began singing as a youngster. In 1950, she joined the band La Sonora Matancera, one of the top tropical bands of its day.

In 1960, La Sonora Matancera left Cuba for a job in Mexico. Rather than return to Cuba, which had come under the dictatorship of Fidel Castro the year before, Cruz and the band went to the United States. She became a permanent U.S. resident in the early 1960’s and a U.S. citizen in 1977. Cruz left La Sonora Matancera to begin her career as a soloist in 1965. She recorded albums with such Latin bandleaders as Willie Colon, Ray Barretto, Johnny Pacheco, and Tito Puente. At the end of her career, Cruz was also performing disco and hip hop music. Cruz died on July 16, 2003.

Asian American actress Anna May Wong.
Credit: © Paramount Pictures

March is Women’s History Month, an annual observance of women’s achievements and contributions to society. This month, Behind the Headlines will feature woman pioneers in a variety of areas.

Her face has gone from the big screen to quarters! Anna May Wong was an Asian American actress. She became famous during the early years of American cinema. In her time, she was one of the few Asian performers to achieve widespread success. Wong eventually grew disappointed with the limited roles offered to her. She also became an outspoken critic of the casting of white performers in Asian roles. The U.S. Mint announced in 2021 that Wong would be one of five women commemorated on the quarter in their American Women Quarters series.

U.S. Mint’s American Women Quarters Program 2022 quarters.
Credit: US Mint

Wong Liu Tsong was born Jan. 3, 1905, in Los Angeles, California. Her parents operated a laundry. She made her first motion-picture appearance as an extra in The Red Lantern (1919). Wong continued acting in small roles. For years, she hid her work as an extra from her family. Her first credited role was in Bits of Life (1921). When her father learned of her acting career, he insisted on being present when she was on set.

Wong starred in the 1923 film Toll of the Sea, the first widely released feature film made in Technicolor. Before Technicolor, films were either shown in black and white or colored by hand. In Toll of the Sea, Wong played the romantic lead, bringing her new fame. However, her stardom started to strain her family life, with photographers and fans showing up at the family laundry to see her. Her family was further upset with her role in The Thief of Bagdad (1924) as an untrustworthy “Mongol slave.”

By the late 1920’s, Wong had grown disappointed in Hollywood. She was consistently offered roles as villains, slaves, or temptresses. In contrast, sympathetic leading roles were often reserved for white performers. Even Asian lead roles were often performed by better-known white actors made up to look Asian. In The Crimson City (1928), for example, Wong played a supporting role to lead actress Myrna Loy, a white woman made to look Asian. Wong moved to Europe in hopes of finding more realistic roles. There, she learned to speak French, German, and Italian. In 1929, Wong starred alongside the British actor Laurence Olivier in the play A Circle of Chalk in London.

In 1931, Wong starred as the lead in the Broadway play On the Spot. The role led to a return to Hollywood, with Daughter of the Dragon (1931) and Shanghai Express (1932). Both films offered the type of Asian villainess roles Wong had sought to escape. Yet Shanghai Express allowed for a more nuanced portrayal. Wong played Hui Fei, a prostitute (sex worker) and ally of a Chinese warlord who later turns on him, killing him.

Despite the acclaim she received for Shanghai Express, Wong continued to be offered disappointing roles. Producers had wanted Wong to play Lotus, a dancer, in the film adaptation of the novel The Good Earth. Wong wanted to play O-Lan, the female lead. The German actress Luise Rainer went on to win an Academy Award for portraying O-Lan.

In 1936, Wong again left Hollywood, this time for China. In China, Wong was criticized for her early film roles and for being too western for Chinese audiences. When she returned to America, filmmakers were more interested in hiring her to coach white actors performing Asian roles. In 1942, she retired from acting in films.

During the 1950’s, Wong acted in television shows, including her own series in 1951. In “The Gallery of Mme. Liu Tsong,” Wong portrayed a gallery owner who solved crimes. In 1960, she attempted a return to film, portraying a housekeeper in Portrait in Black. Wong died Feb. 3, 1961, from a heart attack. The Chinese American actress Michelle Krusiec played Wong in the television miniseries Hollywood (2020).

Wilma Mankiller, shown in this photograph, served as principal chief of the Cherokee Nation from 1985 to 1995. She was the first woman elected to that position.
Credit: © Peter Brooker, Rex Features/Presselect/Alamy Images

March is Women’s History Month, an annual observance of women’s achievements and contributions to society. This month, Behind the Headlines will feature woman pioneers in a variety of areas.

Wilma Mankiller led the Cherokee Nation as its first woman principal chief. The Cherokee are one of the largest Indigenous tribes in the United States. As chief, Mankiller restructured the tribal government to better balance the distribution of power between men and women. She also increased tribal membership and improved the tribe’s health, education, and housing programs. In addition, Mankiller took an active role in nationwide social movements to fight the oppression of women and Indigenous people.

Wilma Pearl Mankiller was born on Nov. 18, 1945, in Tahlequah, Oklahoma. When she was 12, her parents moved the impoverished family to a housing project in San Francisco under a federal Indigenous relocation program. Wilma married Hugo Olaya in 1963 and pursued a career as a social worker. In 1969, Mankiller became involved with a civil rights organization called the American Indian Movement (AIM). That year, protesters with AIM occupied Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay. The group was protesting the breaking of treaties and the violation of Indigenous human rights by the federal government. Mankiller visited the protesters and raised money for their support. Her participation in AIM inspired her to become involved in bettering the lives of the Cherokee people.

Mankiller returned to Oklahoma with her two children in 1976, following a divorce. She worked as the community development director of the Cherokee Nation. She married Charlie Soap, a Cherokee community developer. Mankiller served as deputy chief of the Cherokee under Principal Chief Ross O. Swimmer. In 1985, Swimmer resigned to become assistant secretary of Indian affairs for the U.S. Department of the Interior. Mankiller became principal chief of the Cherokee.

Mankiller stepped down as chief in 1995 due to poor health. However, she remained an important advisor in Cherokee affairs. Mankiller was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1998. Her books include the autobiography Mankiller: A Chief and Her People (1993) and Every Day Is a Good Day: Reflections by Contemporary Indigenous Women (2004). She died on April 6, 2010. The U.S. Mint announced in 2021 that Mankiller would be one of five women commemorated on the quarter in their American Women Quarters series.

Hispanic American politician, suffragist, and writer Nina Otero-Warren.
Credit: Library of Congress

March is Women’s History Month, an annual observance of women’s achievements and contributions to society. This month, Behind the Headlines will feature woman pioneers in a variety of areas.

Many women have paved the way for women’s rights without much recognition. This year, the United States Mint has decided to honor notable women who made a difference in the United States. Soon you might see Nina Otero-Warren’s face on a quarter with the phrase “Voto para la mujer” which means “votes for women.” Otero-Warren was a Hispanic American politician, suffragist, and writer. A suffragist is a supporter of voting rights, particularly the right of women to vote. Otero-Warren was one of the first women to hold government office in New Mexico. She became the first woman from New Mexico and the first Hispanic woman to run for U.S. Congress. Otero-Warren was a leader of the woman suffrage movement in New Mexico.

Maria Adelina Isabel Emilia Otero was born on Oct. 23, 1881, in Los Lunas, south of Albuquerque, New Mexico. She was known as Adelina Otero as a child. As an adult, she was called Nina. She was the second child of Manuel Basilio Otero and Eloisa Luna Otero. Her parents descended from Spanish settlers. The Oteros and Lunas were both wealthy, controlling a large amount of land in the area during her childhood. Her father was fatally shot in a land dispute before she turned two. Her mother remarried in 1886 to Alfred Maurice Bergere. Bergere was an English businessman of Italian descent. Nina attended St. Vincent’s Academy, a Catholic grade school in Albuquerque, until she was 11 years old. She attended Maryville College of the Sacred Heart, in St. Louis, Missouri, for two years. When she was 13 years old, Nina returned to live with her family. The Bergere family moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico, when she was 16 years old.

In 1908, Otero married U.S. Army officer Rawson Warren. The two remained married for a brief time before she divorced him. Divorce was not widely accepted at the time, and she continued to use the name Otero-Warren, claiming to be a widow.

Otero-Warren joined the suffrage movement and became a leader in the Congressional Union (later the National Woman’s Party) in 1917. She advised printing suffrage literature in both English and Spanish to help win New Mexico’s ratification of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, granting women the right to vote. Otero-Warren served as the first woman superintendent of public schools for Santa Fe County, from 1918 to 1929. She also worked for the American Red Cross, New Mexico State Council of Defense in the First Judicial District, New Mexico’s Republican women’s organization, and as inspector of Indian Services for the Department of the Interior. Otero-Warren was an advocate for bilingual and multicultural education at a time when English was the only language allowed in schools for Hispanic and Indigenous (native) children.

In 1922, Otero-Warren ran as the Republican Party nominee to represent New Mexico in the U.S. House of Representatives. She lost the election. Otero-Warren continued to work for the Board of Health, the Red Cross, and various literacy programs.

In the early 1930’s, Otero-Warren applied for a homestead outside Santa Fe with her partner, the American suffragist Mamie Meadors. They named the homestead Las Dos, meaning The Two Women. Otero-Warren and Meadors worked on the homestead building houses, maintaining roads, and fencing the property. They received the title for the land after five years, under the Homestead Act of 1862. Otero-Warren continued working the land after Meadors died in 1951.

Otero-Warren began writing in the 1930’s. Her article “My People” was published in the magazine Survey Graphic in 1931. She wrote a book, Old Spain in Our Southwest, published in 1936. Otero-Warren died on Jan. 3, 1965.

Chloe Kim, American snowboarder
Credit: © Cameron Spencer, Getty Images

March is Women’s History Month, an annual observance of women’s achievements and contributions to society. This month, Behind the Headlines will feature woman pioneers in a variety of areas.

Chloe Kim brought home the gold medal in the women’s halfpipe snowboarding event at the 2022 Winter Olympic Games held in Beijing, China. The halfpipe is an acrobatic event performed in a deep trough. Kim also won the gold medal in the women’s halfpipe event at the 2018 Winter Olympics held in Pyeongchang, South Korea. In Pyeongchang, she became the youngest woman to win a snowboarding gold medal in the Winter Olympics. In Beijing, Kim became the first woman to win multiple Olympic golds in the women’s halfpipe snowboarding event.

Kim won the snowboarding gold medal in the women’s halfpipe competition during the 2018 Winter Olympic Games at Pyeongchang, South Korea.
Credit: © Leonard Zhukovsky, Shutterstock

Kim has also gained international success in slopestyle events. In slopestyle, competitors perform on special courses that feature various obstacles. Kim was too young to compete in the 2014 Winter Olympic Games. However, at the 2016 Winter Youth Olympic Games in Lillehammer, Norway, she won gold medals in both the halfpipe and slopestyle. She thus became the first American woman to win a snowboarding gold medal at the Youth Olympic competition.

Kim had previously earned international recognition for her performances in the X Games, an action sports competition held in the summer and winter and modeled on the Olympics. She won a silver medal in the superpipe, a variation of the halfpipe, at the 2014 Winter X Games. In 2015 and 2016, she won three X Games gold medals in the superpipe. In 2016, Kim became the first female to score a perfect 100 in the superpipe at the U.S. Snowboarding Grand Prix. She won the gold medal in the superpipe at the X Games again in 2018, 2019, and 2021.

Kim was born on April 23, 2000, in Long Beach, California. Her parents had immigrated to the United States from South Korea. Kim began snowboarding at the age of 4 and began competing as a member of Team Mountain High in California at the age of 6. She trained in Switzerland from the ages of 8 to 10 and then returned to the United States. In the fall of 2019, Kim enrolled at Princeton University, in New Jersey. She took a leave of absence from her studies in 2020 to concentrate on snowboarding.

Raina Telgemeier
Credit: © Leonardo Cendamo, Getty Images

March is Women’s History Month, an annual observance of women’s achievements and contributions to society. This month, Behind the Headlines will feature woman pioneers in a variety of areas.

Adults often ask kids, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” When the American author, cartoonist, and illustrator Raina Telgemeier was asked this question, she knew exactly what she wanted to be—a cartoonist. Telgemeier is a bestselling author of graphic novels for teens. These works have been noted for being relatable to middle schoolers and high schoolers.

Telgemeier gained recognition for four graphic novel adaptations of the “Baby-Sitter’s Club” series of novels, written by Ann M. Martin. Telgemeier’s adaptations are Kristy’s Great Idea and The Truth About Stacey (both 2006), Mary Anne Saves the Day (2007), and Claudia and Mean Janine (2008). Telgemeier has also created several original best-selling graphic novels for teens, including Smile (2010), Drama (2012), Sisters (2014), Ghosts (2016), and Guts (2019).

Telgemeier was born on May 26, 1977, in San Francisco, California. She received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in illustration from the School of Visual Arts in New York City in 2002. From 2002 to 2005, she created her first published comics, seven short stories in the series “Take-Out.” Her work has appeared in many other comic series and anthologies.