The Battle for a Ballot
Today marks two anniversaries in women’s suffrage, one triumphant and the other tragic. In 1919 the Nineteenth Amendment, which gave women the right to vote, cleared a critical hurdle when it was passed by the Senate on its way to being ratified the following year. Six years earlier on this day, British suffragist Emily Davison entered the racetrack during the Epsom Derby and moved in front of King George V’s horse, which struck her; she died four days later, becoming a martyr to the cause.
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News and Notes
South Korea headed to the polls yesterday in a snap presidential election to replace a disgraced leader.
South Korea has a new president as liberal Lee Jae-Myung emerged as the winner of a snap presidential election on Tuesday. The election was called following the ousting of conservative leader Yoon Suk-Yeol, who was impeached and arrested a month after his stunning declaration of martial law on December 3, 2024. Lee had run for president before, losing to Yoon in 2022 in the closest presidential election in South Korean history. Lee’s is a rags-to-riches story. Born into poverty and forced into factory labor at a young age, Lee would go on to become a human rights lawyer and was elected as mayor of Seongnam in 2010.
Aleksey NavalnyToday would have been the 49th birthday of Russian lawyer, politician and anti-corruption activist Aleksey Navalny, who achieved international recognition as one of the most prominent domestic critics of Russian Pres. Vladimir Putin. Navalny, who suffered a near-fatal poisoning in 2020, was jailed on several occasions in what were widely seen as politically motivated charges. Navalny died while in a Siberian penal colony on February 16, 2024, at age 47.
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