300+: Number of women elected as municipal councilors in November 1937, two months after Filipino women won the right of suffrage.
80: Age of Pilar Hidalgo-Lim when she died. Lim spearheaded the women’s suffrage movement in the Philippines. Born May 24, 1893, she was president of Centro Escolar University, and was the first woman to graduate with honors from the University of the Philippines. She died of cancer on Dec. 8, 1973.
1912: Year that Dr. Maria Paz Mendoza Guanzon became the first woman to receive a medical degree from the University of the Philippines.
6.68: Length in meters of the long jump by athlete Marestella Torres in the 2009 Southeast Asian Games in Laos, which broke the 6.52-meter record of 15-time SEA Games gold medalist Elma Muros-Posadas, which had stood for 20 years.
14.2: Absolute magnitude of the minor planet (13241) Biyo, which was named after Filipino science teacher Dr. Josette Biyo by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The minor planet, which orbits counterclockwise between Mars and Jupiter, was named after Biyo, who won the 2002 Intel Excellence in Teaching Award during the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair in Louisville, Kentucky. Biyo bested more than 90 other participants worldwide.
1903: Year when Marie Curie, who discovered radium, became the first woman to win a Nobel Prize. The Polish-born French physicist and chemist won her second Nobel in 1911, making her the first to ever win the honor twice.
1920: Year when women in the United States won the right to vote
1963: Year when Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman to travel in space.
1979: Year when Margaret Thatcher became the first woman to serve as Britain’s Prime Minister.
1981: Year when Sandra Day O’Connor became the first female member of the US Supreme Court.
Compiled by Schatzi Quodala, Inquirer Research
Source: Avon, nasa.gov, nhi.gov.ph, PDI Archives