Category Great Women

WHO WAS THE FIRST AMERICAN WOMAN TO WALK IN SPACE?

On June 18, 1983, Sally K. Ride was onboard the space shuttle Challenger for the STS-7 mission, thereby becoming the first American woman to go into space. Apart from making two space flights, Ride championed the cause of science education for children.

The first decades of space exploration was largely dominated by two countries the US and the Soviet Union This period is even referred to as the Space Race as the two Cold War adversaries pitted themselves: against each other to achieve superior spaceflight capabilities.

While the two countries were neck and neck in most aspects. the Soviets sent a woman to space much before the US. Even though Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman in space in June 1963, it was another 20 years before Sally Ride became the first American woman in space

Urged to explore

Ride was the older of two daughters born  to Carol Joyce Ride and Dale Ride. Even though her mother was a counsellor and her father a professor of political science. Ride credits them for fostering her interest in science by enabling her to explore from a very young age.

An athletic teenager, Ride loved sports such as tennis, running, volleyball, and softball. In fact, she attended Westlake School for Girls in Los Angeles on a partial tennis scholarship. She even tried her luck in professional tennis, before returning to California to attend Stanford University.

By 1973, Ride not only had a Bachelor of Science degree in Physics, but had also obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree in English. She got her Master of Science degree in 1975 and obtained her Ph.D. in Physics by 1978

Restriction removed

Having restricted astronaut qualification to men for decades,  NASA expanded astronaut selection with the advent of the space shuttle from only pilots to engineers and scientists, opening the doorway for women finally. Having seen an ad in a newspaper inviting women to apply for the astronaut programme Ride decided to give it a shot

Out of more than 8,000 applications, Ride became one of six women who were chosen as an astronaut candidate in January 1978. Spaceflight training began soon after and it included parachute jumping, water survival, weightlessness, radio communications, and navigation, among others. She was also involved in developing the robot arm used to deploy and retrieve satellites.

Ride served as part of the ground-support crew for STS-2 and STS-3 missions in November 1981 and March 1982. In April 1982, NASA announced that Ride would be part of the STS-7 crew, serving as a mission specialist in a five-member crew.

First American woman in space

On June 18, 1983, Ride became the first American woman in space. By the time the STS-7 mission was completed and the space shuttle Challenger returned to Earth on June 24, they had launched communications satellites for Canada and Indonesia. As an expert in the use of the shuttle’s robotic arm, Ride also helped deploy and retrieve a satellite in space using the robot arm.

Ride created history once again when she became the first American woman to travel to space a second time as part of the STS-41G in October 1984. During this nine-day mission, Ride employed the shuttle’s robotic arm to remove ice from the shuttle’s exterior and to also readjust a radar antenna. There could have even been a third, as she was supposed to join STS-61M, but that mission was cancelled following the 1986 Challenger disaster.

Even after her days of space travel were over, Ride was actively involved in influencing the space programme. When accident investigation boards were set up in response to two shuttle tragedies – Challenger in 1986 and Columbia in 2003 Ride was a part of them both.

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WHO INDIAN AUTHOR WON THE FIRST INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE?

Geetanjali Shree has become the first Indian author to win the prestigious International Booker Prize for her “utterly original” Hindi novel “Tomb of Sand”, a family saga set in northern India about an 80-year-old woman who travels to Pakistan to confront the unresolved trauma of her teenage experiences of Partition and re-evaluates what it means to be a mother, a daughter, a woman and a feminist.

At a ceremony in London on Thursday, the 64-year-old New Delhi-based writer said she was “completely overwhelmed” with the “bolt from the blue” as she accepted her 50,000-pound prize, and shared it with the book’s English translator Daisy Rockwell. The prize is split between author and translator equally.

“Tomb of Sand”, originally “Ret Samadhi”, is set in northern India and follows an 80-year-old woman in a tale the Booker judges dubbed a “joyous cacophony” and an “irresistible novel”.

“I never dreamt of the Booker. I never thought I could. What a huge recognition, I’m amazed, delighted, honoured and humbled,” said Shree in her acceptance speech. “There is a melancholy satisfaction in the award going to it. ‘Ret Samadhi/Tomb of Sand’ is an elegy for the world we inhabit, a lasting energy that retains hope in the face of impending doom. The Booker will surely take it to many more people than it would have reached otherwise, that should do the book no harm,” she said.

Reflecting upon becoming the first work of fiction in Hindi to make the Booker cut, the author said it felt good to be the means of that happening. “But behind me and this book lies a rich and flourishing literary tradition in Hindi, and in other South Asian languages. World literature will be richer for knowing some of the finest writers in these languages. The vocabulary of life will increase from such an interaction,” she said.

Rockwell, a painter, writer and translator living in Vermont, US, joined her on stage to receive her award for translating the novel she described as a “love letter to the Hindi language”. “Ultimately, we were captivated by the power, the poignancy and the playfulness of ‘Tomb of Sand’, Geetanjali Shree’s polyphonic novel of identity and belonging, in Daisy Rockwell’s exuberant, coruscating translation,” said Frank Wynne, chair of the judging panel.

This is a luminous novel of India and Partition, but one whose spellbinding brio and fierce compassion weaves youth and age, male and female, family and nation into a kaleidoscopic whole,” he said.

The book’s 80-year-old protagonist, Ma, to her family’s consternation, insists on travelling to Pakistan, simultaneously confronting the unresolved trauma of her teenage experiences of Partition, and re-evaluating what it means to be a mother, a daughter, a woman, a feminist.

The Booker jury was impressed that rather than respond to tragedy with seriousness, Shree’s playful tone and exuberant wordplay resulted in a book that is “engaging. funny, and utterly original”, at the same time as being an urgent and timely protest against the destructive impact of borders and boundaries, whether between religions, countries, or genders.

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Who was the first blind and deaf person to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree?

Helen Keller was the first deaf blind person to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree, graduating from Radcliffe College, Massachusetts, in 1904. Her autobiography, The Story of My Life, written during her junior year at Radcliffe has been translated into 50 languages and remains in print to this day. She is remembered as an advocate for persons with disabilities, while her life story continues to be an inspiration to millions across the world.

Despite the fact Helen was virtually unable to communicate; her parents were determined to find a tutor for her because they believed she could learn. They finally met Anne Sullivan, and their hopes were fulfilled. Anne herself was partially blind, but she learned the manual alphabet while she was a student at the Institute.

Anne Sullivan taught Helen the manual alphabet by pressing the handshapes into Helen’s palm. Helen was soon able to read Braille and write with a special typewriter. Helen also eventually learned to speak by feeling Anne’s throat as she spoke and imitating the vibrations. Helen made history in 1904. She was the first deaf and blind person to graduate from college. She graduated from Radcliffe College with honors. Speaking about war, capital punishment, and child labor, Keller lectured all over the world for most of her life. As a champion for people with disabilities, she provided inspiration for those who might have otherwise lost hope.

Anne Sullivan was a constant companion to Helen until her death in 1936. At the age of eighty-eight, Helen died in 1968 in Westport, Connecticut.

Helen is truly an inspiration to all people–not just people with disabilities. She proves that anything can be accomplished through hard work, dedication, and faith.

Credit : Start ASL

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Who was Helen Brooke Taussig ?

Helen Brooke Taussig was an American cardiologist who is best known for her contributions to the treatment of “blue baby” syndrome. Helen Taussig was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1898. Taussig’s childhood was marred by several difficulties, including the death of her mother when Taussig was only 11 years old. Taussig struggled with severe dyslexia and partial deafness. However, these difficulties did not deter her from following her heart.

She earned a bachelors degree from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1921 and went on to study medicine from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and graduated in 1927. Taussig initially worked in the adult heart clinic run by Dr. Edward Perkins Carter. Recognising her abilities, Dr. Edwards Park offered Taussig a residency position in paediatric medicine. Two years later, Taussig was named the head of the paediatric cardiac clinic at the Harriet Lane Home of Johns Hopkins, a position she held until her retirement in 1963.

At 32 years old, Helen began to lose her hearing fully. Using stethoscope to listen to patients heartbeat became a challenge. Although she used hearing aids and lip reading to communicate with her patients, there wasn’t a good substitute for the standard stethoscope in the 1930s. Taussig learned to “listen” with her hands. She gently placed her fingers on a child’s chest and felt for murmurs. She became too good at it that she was able to identify and recognise common beat pattems in the malformed hearts of infant patients.

In the meantime, Taussig focussed her research on congenital heart defects – particularly the blue baby syndrome.” Blue baby syndrome is commonly caused by a congenital heart defect that reduces the amount of oxygenated blood being pumped throughout the body. Using fluoroscopy, Taussig observed that these children had decreased pulmonary blood flow to the lungs, which reduced the amount of blood available for oxygenation. Taussig proposed that creating an arterial patent ductus, or shunt, would alleviate the problem. Together with her colleagues Alfred Blalock and Vivien Thomas, she developed the Blalock-Taussig shunt, an artery-like tube designed to deliver oxygen-rich blood from the lungs to the heart. Together, they successfully implanted Blalock-Taussig shunt on an infant in 1944. Soon she became widely recognised as a highly skilled physician.

She was awarded the Medal of Freedom by U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964, and in 1965 Taussig became the first woman president of the American Heart Association. Taussig is also known for her work in banning thalidomide, a drug given to pregnant women that was later found to cause birth defects in the babies born to them.

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