With her IndyCar victory, Danica Patrick became the first woman to win a race in a top-level racing series. Onion Sports salutes her achievement and that of other groundbreaking sportswomen:
1950: Babe Didrikson becomes the first woman to inspire a “First Woman” feature in a newspaper
1973: Billie Jean King becomes the first woman to beat an alcoholic 55-year-old man in a wheelchair at a game of tennis
1975: Kathy Whitworth’s 88 career victories result in her selection to the World Golf Hall of Fame, although she has to be inducted from the ladies podium
1976: Janet Guthrie becomes the first driver in a NASCAR race to stop and ask for directions
1985: Libby Riddles becomes the first woman to win the Iditarod by using the unconventional strategy of having her sled drawn by terrified cats
1993: Rosie O’Donnell becomes the first fat woman to portray a fictional fat female athlete in A League Of Their Own
2000: Cheryl Bachman becomes the first woman in history to understand the Infield Fly Rule
2005: Lisa Leslie breaks boundaries by showing that a woman can dunk a basketball if she puts her mind to it, dreams big, and sort of lets go of the ball a little bit and guides it over the rim while allowing her body language to suggest that it was a dunk
