1978: NOAA announces gender-neutral hurricane naming system
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Opha May Johnson was the first woman known to have enlisted in the US Marine Corps. She joined the Corps Reserve on this day in 1918, the first of 300 women in line to do so that day. Her early duties included clerking at Headquarters Marine Corps, managing the records of other female reservists who joined after her. She was promoted to sergeant in September 1918, and was the highest-ranking woman in the Marine Corps during her time in service. Prior to joining the military, Johnson graduated from the shorthand and typewriting department of Wood’s Commercial College in Washington, D.C., in 1895, and worked for the Interstate Commerce Commission. She was a charter member of the American Legion’s first post of women’s Marine Corps reservists. After World War I all military services began the steadily disenrolling women from active service, and Johnson became a clerk in the War Department, still working for the Marine Corps as a civil servant until retiring in 1943.
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