March is officially Women’s History Month, giving us the perfect excuse to crank up Beyoncé’s “Who run the world? Girls!” and mean every word. Each snapshot below highlights just how far women have come—and how their impact keeps growing today.

How Women’s History Month started

• The very first National Women’s Day in the U.S. was held on February 28, 1909, when some 15,000 women marched for safer conditions and fairer pay, marking the one-year anniversary of massive garment workers’ strikes in New York City.

• In 1978, an education task force in Sonoma County, California, launched Women’s History Week around March 8 to push schools to include women’s stories in K–12 classrooms.

• After years of advocacy from groups like the National Women’s History Alliance, Congress officially designated March as Women’s History Month in 1987—and it’s been celebrated nationwide ever since.

Early changemakers who shook things up

• On March 2, 1955, 15-year-old Claudette Colvin refused to give up her bus seat to a white passenger in Montgomery, Alabama—nine months before Rosa Parks’s famous protest—and was arrested for standing her ground.

• Test pilot Geraldyn “Jerrie” Cobb became the first American woman to pass the same grueling physical tests given to male astronauts in 1961, yet she was denied a chance to fly in space because of her gender.

• It took until June 18, 1983, for an American woman—Sally Ride—to finally travel to space when she launched aboard the space shuttle Challenger and shattered one more barrier.

Rights women gained over time

• Until the Equal Credit Opportunity Act passed in 1974, many women couldn’t get a credit card in their own name without a man (often a husband or father) cosigning, which limited their financial independence.

• Wyoming Territory granted women the right to vote as early as 1869, but the 19th Amendment in 1920 still left many women of color blocked by discriminatory laws and practices.

• Only after the Voting Rights Act of 1965—signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson—were all women truly protected in exercising their right to vote nationwide.

Women across time: Education, work, and using their voices

• Eleanor Roosevelt held an incredible 348 press conferences exclusively for female reporters over 12 years, ensuring women in journalism had access and a platform.

• Women now make up more than half of the college-educated labor force in the U.S., a shift that began in 2019 and has held steady as women outpace men in college completion.

• Recent data shows that women’s employment rates have hit record highs, with about three-quarters of women ages 25 to 54 employed in 2023—even as they continue pushing for equal pay and leadership opportunities.

Her-story is still being written every day—and chances are, you’re already part of it.