Spotlight: July 19 is a red-letter date for women: on this date in 1848, the first women's rights convention began in Seneca Falls, NY. Suffragists Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton were among others who called for equal rights for women in education, law and voting. They drafted a Declaration of Sentiments, based on the Declaration of Independence. (It took another 70-plus years for American women to get the right to vote; the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution was ratified on August 18, 1920.) Another blow for women's rights was struck on this date in 1984, when Geraldine Ferraro was chosen as the first female vice-presidential nominee at the Democratic Party convention in San Francisco.

Quote: "Come, come, my conservative friend, wipe the dew off your spectacles, and see that the world is moving." — Elizabeth Cady Stanton