Golda Meir, Ukrainian-Israeli educator and politician, 4th Prime Minister of Israel (b. 1898)
Golda Meir (born Golda Mabovitch; May 3, 1898 – December 8, 1978; married name Meyerson/Myerson between 1917–1956) was an Israeli politician, teacher, and kibbutznikit who served as the fourth prime minister of Israel from 1969 to 1974. She was the first woman to become head of government in Israel.
Born in Kyiv in Ukraine, she immigrated to Wisconsin, United States as a child with her family in 1906, and was educated there, becoming a teacher. After getting married, she and her husband emigrated to then Palestine in 1921, settling on a kibbutz. Meir was elected prime minister of Israel on March 17, 1969, after serving as labour minister and foreign minister. The world's fourth and Israel's only woman to hold the office of prime minister, and the first in any country in the Middle East, she has been described as the "Iron Lady" of Israeli politics.Meir was Prime Minister during the Yom Kippur War of 1973. Israel was caught off guard and suffered severe losses in the first days of the war, before recovering and defeating the invading armies. Public anger at the government caused Meir's resignation the following year. She died in 1978 of lymphoma.
1978Dec, 8
Golda Meir
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Events on 1978
- 11Feb
Aristotle
Censorship: China lifts a ban on works by Aristotle, William Shakespeare and Charles Dickens. - 27Apr
Watergate scandal
Former United States President Nixon aide John D. Ehrlichman is released from an Arizona prison after serving 18 months for Watergate-related crimes. - 25Jul
In vitro fertilisation
Birth of Louise Joy Brown, the first human to have been born after conception by in vitro fertilisation, or IVF. - 22Oct
Pope John Paul II
Papal inauguration of Pope John Paul II. - 18Nov
Jim Jones
In Jonestown, Guyana, Jim Jones led his Peoples Temple to a mass murder-suicide that claimed 918 lives in all, 909 of them in Jonestown itself, including over 270 children. Congressman Leo Ryan is murdered by members of the Peoples Temple hours earlier.