Mother Francesca S. Cabrini becomes the first American to be canonized.
Frances Xavier Cabrini (Italian: Francesca Saverio Cabrini; July 15, 1850 – December 22, 1917), also called Mother Cabrini, was an Italian-American Roman Catholic nun. She founded the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, a Catholic religious institute that was a major support to her fellow Italian immigrants to the United States. She was the first U.S. citizen to be canonized as a saint by the Roman Catholic Church, on July 7, 1946. (Elizabeth Ann Seton in 1975 became the first canonized saint who was born in what is now the United States.)