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Woman were cracking glass ceilings long before Clinton

First woman to...
Women who helped shatter glass ceilings 01:49

Hillary Clinton made history this week, becoming the first woman nominated to the presidency by a major American party.

This comes 32 years after Geraldine Ferraro was chosen as Walter Mondale's running mate - the first woman to appear on a presidential ticket, reports "CBS This Morning: Saturday" co-host Vinita Nair.

Would a Hillary Clinton presidency have impact on women in America? 06:34

Three years earlier, President Ronald Reagan made good on a campaign promise by nominating Sandra Day O'Connor to the Supreme Court. Two months later, she was sworn in, becoming the first female justice to sit on the nation's highest court.

But the first cracks in the glass ceiling of politics were made exactly 100 years ago, when Jeannette Rankin was the first woman elected to Congress, four years before women won the right to vote.

And even earlier than that, Marie Curie was making history as the first woman to win the Nobel Prize in 1903 and winning again eight years later.

Speaking of prizes, Edith Wharton was the first woman to take home the Pulitzer for fiction for her 1923 novel "The Age of Innocence."

But it took 87 more years for a female director to be recognized at the Oscars - Kathryn Bigelow winning the Academy Award for her work on "The Hurt Locker."

And after an all-male inaugural class in 1986, Aretha Franklin busted down the doors as the first female inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

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