On this Day

[digitS']

Persons Day celebrates a Canadian constitutional case decided on October 18, 1929.

The Judicial Committee of the Imperial Privy Council announced that the court's decision was that the word 'person' would include women:

"The exclusion of women from all public offices is a relic of days more barbarous than ours. And to those who would ask why the word "person" should include females, the obvious answer is, why should it not?"

 

[Ridgerunner]

The US beat that by 9 years. On August 18, 1920 the 19th amendment was ratified. There is a fun story behind that. Tennessee was the last state that ratified it. The deciding vote was cast by a legislator because his mother told him to.