1914: Birthday of Elly Peterson, a trailblazer in Michigan politics as first woman to chair a major political party in the state. Despite losing a 1964 Senate race, she later served as chair of the Michigan Republican Party and assistant chairman of the Republican National Committee. Disillusioned with her party's stance on women's rights, she became an independent in the 1970s. Peterson was posthumously inducted into the Michigan Women’s Hall of Fame in 1984.