Centuries from now, 2021 will be celebrated as an anniversary year most noted for getting rid of 2020. It will be less remembered as a year featuring a diverse roster of scientific anniversaries, ranging from the 1300th birthday of a prolific writer to the 25th birthday of a celebrity sheep.
Nevertheless, before too much of 2021 passes by, it’s time to name the Top 10 anniversaries worthy of celebration this year — some obscure, some fairly famous, and one that had an unfair advantage helping to make it No. 1.
10. Elizabeth Blackwell, 200th birthday
Born in England in 1821, Blackwell moved with her family to New York in 1832 and a few years later to Ohio, where she became a teacher in a boarding school. After the death of a close friend she began applying to medical schools, acquiring a bunch of rejections until Geneva College sent her an acceptance letter (apparently the faculty sought input from the school’s students, and they voted to accept her as a joke). But she showed up and the college honored its agreement; she became America’s first licensed woman medical doctor. She went to Europe for two years for advanced medical training and returned to the United States and opened a clinic in New York City to serve poor women and children. Eventually, she established a medical college specifically for women before returning to England to practice medicine there. She died in 1910.