1956
Feb 3, Autherine Lucy (b.1929) arrived at the Tuscaloosa branch of the Univ. of Alabama and became the first black person to enroll there. She had been accepted in 1952 and then was denied because of her race.

1995
Feb 3, The space shuttle Discovery blasted off with a woman, Air Force Lt. Col. Eileen Collins, in the pilot's seat for the first time in NASA history.

1998
Feb 3, Mary Kay LeTourneau, 36, former Washington state teacher, violated probation with the 14 year-old father of her baby.

1998
Feb 3, In Texas Karla Faye Tucker (38) was executed by lethal injection with sodium thiopental for the 1983 pickax slaying of 2 people during a break-in in 1983. She was the first woman executed in the United States since 1984.

2008
Feb 3, In Sri Lanka a female suicide bomber attacked the main railway station in the capital of Colombo, killing at least 15 people and wounding 93 others. The dead included 7 students and their baseball coach killed on the eve of Freedom Day.

2009
Feb 3, Eluana Englaro (37), a woman at the center of Italy's right-to-die debate, was transferred to a hospital where she is to be allowed to die after 17 years in a vegetative state.

2011
Feb 3, In Thailand a 47-year-old Thai woman died at a hotel. A 23-year-old New Zealand woman died Feb. 6 at the same Downtown Inn in Chiang Mai. Her two female companions, who became sick, recovered. A British couple in their 70s were found in their hotel room at the same hotel on Feb. 19. A later investigation reported exposure to some toxic chemical, pesticides or gas.

Great women