Published: November 2, 2000
1873 - Ten women compete in a one-mile swimming race in New York; first prize was a $175 silk dress
1876 - First competition between sexes with no handicap; Mary Marshall won two out of three 20-mile races against Peter Van Ness
1879 - Twenty women enter the National Archery Championship, the first national tournament for American women in any sport
1883 - The National Baseball League sponsors the first "Ladies' Day", inviting women to see a game for free
1885 - Sharpshooter Annie Oakley becomes the first ever cowgirl in Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show
1895 - Frances Willard publishes A Wheel Within A Wheel, and account of how she learned to ride a bicycle. It quickly becomes a best seller.
1896 - First women's college basketball game. Stanford defeats the University of California at Berkeley 2-1
1900 - U.S. golfer Margaret Abbot becomes the first woman to win an Olympic gold medal. Her title is considered unofficial, however, and women's events are not officially added to the Olympics until 1912
1907 - Annette Kellermann appears in a one-piece bathing suit at a Boston beach. She is one of the first women to wear such a suit in public
1910 - 19 year-old Blanche Stuart Scott completes the first solo auto trip across the country by a woman driver. That same year she becomes the first female pilot to fly a plane solo
1917 - Lucy Diggs Slowe wins the women's singles title at the first ATA national tournament, becoming the first African American national female champion in fencing
1920 - Ethelda Bleibtrey becomes the first American woman to win an official gold medal, setting a world record in the 100 meter freestyle swim
1926 - Gertrude Ederle swims the English Channel five hours faster than any of the five men who swum it in the past
1928 - Some women competitors collapsed after running the 800 meters at the Summer Olympics. This prompted controversy and officials decided that this event was too taxing on women's bodies, and that the physical exertion would cause women to age prematurely. Because of this, no event longer than the 200 meters was available to women until 1960.
1932 - Mildred "Babe" Didrikson sets three world records in track and field and wins two gold medals and one silver at the Summer Olympics
1933 - Jockey Judy Johnson competes and wins in three races against male jockeys
1943 - Philip K. Wrigley forms the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (subject of the movie A League of their Own)
1944 - Ann Curtis becomes the first woman to win the James E. Sullivan Memorial Trophy, given each year to the nation's top amateur athlete
1948 - Alice Coachman becomes the first black woman to win an Olympic gold medal when she sets an Olympic record in the high jump with a jump of 5feet, 6 1/8 inches
1949 - Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) is formed
1952 - Organized baseball formally bans women when shortstop Eleanor Engle's contract is voided
1953 - Second basewoman Toni Scott becomes the first woman to compete at the top level of the Negro baseball league
1957 - Althea Gibson takes the women's singles crowns at both Wimbledon and Forest Hills, becoming the first African American woman to win either tournament
1960 - Wilma Rudolph becomes the first to win three track and field gold medals at the Olympics
1961 - Golfer Louise Suggs beats 10 men to win a 54-hole golf tournament
1964 - Pilot Jerrie Mock becomes the first woman to fly solo around the world; the trip takes her 29 days
1965 - Donna de Varona became the first female sportscaster on network television
1967 - Katherine Switzer enters the Boston Marathon under the name "K. Switzer"; she finishes in 4 hours, 20 minutes
1969 - Ruth White wins the national fencing title, making her the first African American woman to win a major U.S. Title
1972 - President Nixon signs Title IX into law, banning sex discrimination in schools receiveing federal funding
1972 - For the first time ever, Sports Illustrated chooses a Sportswoman of the Year, Billie Jean King
1973 - The USTA announces that men and women will earn equal prize money at the U.S. Open tennis championships
1973 - Billie Jean King beats Bobby Riggs 6-4, 6-3, 6-3 in the "Battle of the Sexes"
1974 - Little League signs an order banning sex discrimination in its local chapters
1975 - The first National Women's Wheelchair Basketball Tournament is held
1976 - Women's basketball becomes and medal sport in the Olympics; the U.S. team brings home a silver medal
1977 - Janet Guthrie becomes the first woman to compete in the Indianapolis 500
1980 - The Women's Sports Foundation establishes the International Women's Sports Hall of Fame
1982 - Louisiana Tech wins the first NCAA Division I national women's basketball championship
1984 - Coached by Pat Head Summit, the U.S. women's basketball team wins Olympic gold
1984 - Joan Benoit Samuelson won the first ever women's Olympic marathon event
1985 - The Harlem Globetrotters sign Lynette Woodard, their first female player
1985 - Libby Riddles becomes the first woman to win the 1,100 mile Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race in Alaska
1987 - The first National Girls and Women in Sport Day (NGWSD) is celebrated in Washington, DC
1988 - Julie Croteau is the first woman to play on a men's college baseball team
1991 - The NCAA elects Jusith Sweet as its first female president
1991 - The United States wins the first women's World Cup soccer championship
1992- Manon Rheaume becomes the only woman to start in a National Hockey League game in an exhibition game for the Tampa Bay Lightning.
1993- Julie Krone wins the Belmont Stakes and becomes the first woman jockey to win a Triple Crown race.
1995 - The Colorado Silver Bullets become the first professional women's baseball team since 1954
1995 - The University of Connecticut women's basketball team wins the Division I NCAA championships and end the season with a perfect 35-0 record
1996 - Women's soccer and women's softball become medal sports at the Olympics; the U.S. brings home the gold in both sports
1996 - The Women's National Basketball League (WNBA) was founded
1998 - Women's ice hockey becomes a medal sport; the U.S. team wins the gold medal
1998- Nicole Thost of Germany wins the first women’s Olympic gold medal in the halfpipe snowboard competition. Karine Ruby of France wins the first women’s Olympic gold medal in the giant slalom snowboard competition.
1999- The United States defeats China in the Fifa Women’s World Cup. The final between the U.S. and China was the most-attended women’s sports even in history with an official attendance of 90,185. The United States won in a penalty shootout, with Brandi Chastain scoring the winning goal.
2000- United States sprinter Marion Jones wins 5 Olympic Medals at the 2000 Olympic Games. She won three gold medals (100 meter dash, 200 meter dash, 4x400m relay) and two bronze medals (long jump, 4x100m relay).
2000 - Jockey Julie Krone, 36, becomes the first woman elected to thoroughbred racing’s hall of fame and is the only woman to have won a Triple Crown race, the 1993 Belmont Stakes. In her 19 year career, Krone won 3,545 races and more than $81 million in prize money, setting both records for women riders.
2000 - Sarah Fisher, 19, and Lyn St. James, 53, make Indianapolis 500 history by becoming the first two women in the field, but they collided on lap 74 when a third driver tried to pass going into a turn. Neither was able to finish the race.
2000 - Sisters Venus and Serena Williams make tennis history when, for the first time in history, sisters win the Wimbledon doubles title. The two teamed up to beat teamed Ai Sugiyama and Julie Halard-Decugis 6-3, 6-2.
2000 - Marla Runyan, 31 and legally blind since childhood, earns a spot on the US Olympic team with her third place finish in the women’s 1,500 meters. She becomes the first legally blind runner to make the Olympics.
2000 - Sandra Baldwin is elected the first female president of the US Olympic Committee in its 106-year history.
2001 - 32-year veteran Texas Longhorn coach Jody Conradt, 59, becomes the first women’s basketball coach to work 1,000 games.
2001 - British yachtswoman Ellen MacArthur, 24, becomes the fastest woman and the youngest person to sail round the world single-handedly in a nonstop race after completing a solo three-month journey around the world in mid-February. MacArthur sailed 25,000 miles in 94 days, 4 hours, 25 minutes, 40 seconds aboard her 60-foot Kingfisher yacht.
2001 - American Ann Bancroft, 45 of Scandia, MN, and Norwegian Liv Arnesen, 47 of Oslo, become the first women to cross the Antarctic land mass on skis, each pulling 240-pound sleds. Additionally, Bancroft is the first woman to cross the ice to both the North and South poles; Arnesen was the first woman to ski solo to the South Pole in 1994. The two former schoolteachers began their journey on Nov. 13, 2000, traveling 1,800 miles in 90 days, battling injury, broken sleds, ripped sails, altitude fatigue and subzero temperatures.
2001 - Ashley Martin becomes the first woman to score points in a Division I football game when she kicks three extra points for Jacksonville State who defeat the Cumberland Bulldogs, 71-10. She is the first woman to play Division I football; she also plays for Jacksonville State's soccer team. Martin played for her high school team as a kicker, scoring 2-of-4 on field goals and 79-of-92 on extra points, at East Coweta High School in Georgia.
2002-Lisa Leslie becomes the first woman to dunk in a professional women’s basketball game.
2002 - A seventh grader, 12-year-old Michelle Wie, qualifies for the LPGA Tour's season-opening Takefuji Classic, in Waikoloa, Hawaii, joins 131 other players for the $900,000 54-hole tournament. She is the youngest player to qualify for an LPGA event.
2003 - Pat Summitt becomes the first coach in women's basketball to win 800 career games when her Lady Vols beat DePaul 76-57. She is just the fourth coach in Division I to post 800 victories, and the first woman.
2003-At the London Marathon, Paula Radcliffe of Great Britain sets a new women’s world record with a time of 2 hours, 15 minutes and 25 seconds.
2003-The Women’s United Soccer Association folds after the 2003 season. Among the 16 rosters of World Cup participants, there are 56 players who were on a WUSA team, including all but one member of the U.S. team which boasts some of the sport's biggest names, such as Mia Hamm, Brandi Chastain and Julie Foudy.
2003- Annika Sorenstam competes at the Colonial in Fort Worth, Texas. She is the first woman since Babe Didrikson Zaharias (1945) to play in a PGA Tour event.
2004-Women’s wrestling becomes an official Olympic event at the Athens Olympics
2004- Candace Parker becomes the first female to win the Slam Dunk Contest of the McDonald's High School All-American Game.
2005-Sarah Reinersten becomes the first female above-knee amputee to complete the Ironman Triathlon in Hawaii.
2005 - Danica Patrick, 23, finishes fourth in the Indianapolis 500, leading the race until just eight laps to go, the best finish ever for a woman in Indy 500 history.
2006-University of Tennessee’s Candace Parker became the first woman to dunk in a NCAA Tournament game. Eight minutes later, Parker dunked again making her the first woman to dunk twice in a NCAA Tournament game.
2006 - Epiphanny Price sets a new girls' high school basketball scoring record with 113 points in a game where her Murry Bergtraum team defeats Brandeis High 137-32 in New York City. The previous record of 105 points was set by Hall of Fame member Cheryl Miller in 1982.
2006 - Janna Meyen wins the snowboard slopestyle for the first four-peat in summer or winter X Games history, scoring 91.33 points in the final.
2006 - Sophmore Michaela Hutchinson, Anchorage, AL, becomes the first girl in the nation to win a state high school wrestling title while competing with boys, winning the final in the 103-pound class
2006 - Rachael Scdoris becomes first legally blind musher to finish the 1,100-mile Iditarod dog sled race (in 12 days, 11 hours, 42 minutes).
2006 - Melanie Troxel races to her second Top Fuel victory of the season, making NHRA drag racing history by becoming the first driver in her category to open the season with five consecutive final-round appearances at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
2006 - Coach Pat Summitt earns her 900th career win as the Lady Vols beat Vanderbilt 80-68. Summitt's record is 900-172 in 32 seasons at Tennessee, leading all collegiate coaches.
2006 - 31-year-old Norwegian adventurer Cecilie Skog reaches the North Pole on April 24 in just under 49 days, making her the first woman to both climb the highest mountains on seven continents and ski to the so-called "three poles," which refers to the North and South Poles plus climbing Mount Everest.
2006 - Violet Palmer, 41, becomes the first woman to referee an NBA playoff game, calling Game 2 of the first-round series between the Indiana Pacers and New Jersey Nets. She is currently the only female official in the NBA.
2006 - Dee Caffari, a 33-year-old British former school teacher, becomes the first woman to sail alone and nonstop the "wrong way" around the world, after 179 days at sea against prevailing winds and currents, aboard her 72-foot yacht Aviva on a 28,000-mile voyage from east to west.
2006 - The University of North Carolina's women’s soccer team wins its 18th national D-I title in the 25-year history of the Women’s College Cup
2007-2008- Oklahoma University's Courtney Paris recorded 89 double doubles during the 2007-2008 NCAA Women's Basketball season. This accomplishment is not yet recognized by the NCAA, who documents this statistic for the men's division but not the women's, however Paris' 89 exceeds the current men's record of 87 held by NBA star Tim Duncan.
2007- Tennessee wins seventh National title in Basketball
2007 Marion Jones announced her retirement from track and field after pleading guilty to federal charges for use of performance-enhancing drugs.
2007- The Women’s Professional Soccer League is formed. The WPS consists of seven teams (Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, New Jersey/New York, St. Louis, and Washington, D.C.) and will begin play in April 2009.
2007 - Wimbeldon announces they will pay women players the same as men in 2007.
2007 - Tennis great Billie Jean King is ranked No. 4 by the Hall of Fame Magazine among the top 10 most influential people in sports history and is the only female on the list.
2008-Women’s steeplechase becomes an official Olympic event at the Beijing Olympics.
2008 - American marathoner Dawn Hamlin sets a new world record by completing seven marathons on seven continents in only 49 days with her five and a half hour run in the Antarctica Marathon. She broke the record for fastest female to finish the "seven in seven" quest by 64 days, one of fewer than 200 marathon runners to compete on all seven continents.
2008- Danica Patrick became the first woman to ever to win an IndyCar race at the Indy 300 in Japan.