Good morning. The Israeli military struck several Iranian fuel sites late last night, and videos from Tehran showed columns of flames and smoke climbing into the sky. We have more on the war below. And you can follow updates here. But first, on this International Women’s Day, we’re writing about a project to unearth stories of remarkable women from The Times’s archives.
History makers
What happens when you read about the lives of notable women across time? You start to see what history noticed — and what it didn’t. For Women’s History Month, my colleagues and I pored over hundreds of obituaries in The New York Times archives. Our new project, which we published this weekend, revisits the stories of more than 100 women and reveals how they were seen in their own time. You can read it here. Some stories were familiar. Many were not. Often, even when I was reading about a notable figure, I would learn some new detail that made me ask: How had I not known this about her? Take Hedy Lamarr. I had heard her name, sure — it blazed across marquees and movie posters in the 1930s and ’40s. Her obituary, from 2000, had no shortage of adjectives about her striking appearance. What I hadn’t realized was that she was a prolific inventor whose ideas helped lay the groundwork for modern wireless communication, GPS and Bluetooth. Only two paragraphs mentioned her scientific contributions, almost as a reluctant aside. That pattern appeared throughout the archives. Achievements minimized. Talents framed as curiosities. Women memorialized first for how they looked, or whom they married, before their own accomplishments. And yet, the vibrant lives of these women shone through.
The journalist Martha Gellhorn, who covered wars around the world, once wrote about traveling with her husband, Ernest Hemingway — whom she referred to only as Unwilling Companion. After divorcing him and two other husbands, she concluded that marriage was boring. Moments like that stayed with me. Oriana Fallaci was a glamorous and incisive journalist known for her aggressive style of interviewing prominent people. Sylvia Rivera was a lively transgender activist who, amid the Stonewall riots, shouted to her lover, “I’m not missing a minute of this — it’s the revolution!” A portrait shows Indira Gandhi — India’s first and only female prime minister — seated gracefully in a deep red sari, with her hands folded, beside a small arrangement of yellow flowers. The image is elegant and composed, the kind of photograph meant to project calm authority. These women didn’t wait for the world to expand possibilities for them. They expanded those possibilities themselves. Reading these stories also made me think about the women who shape us in quieter ways. When I was young, I didn’t spend much time imagining what kind of woman I would become. The person who shaped me most wasn’t a celebrity or a historical figure. It was my aunt, who moved to the United States from India when I was 6, shortly after my parents divorced. She was funny and generous and cared deeply about doing the right thing. It’s a lesson that has stayed with me: You live according to your values. Recognition, if it comes, is beside the point. That idea kept coming back to me as I read the obituaries. Most of the women in these pages did not set out to become famous. They followed their convictions and pushed into spaces that had not been built for them. Often they paid a price for it. Reading about their lives has been an energizing exercise, and yet a frustrating one. Again and again, the larger fight — to be seen clearly, to be taken seriously — felt familiar. Their stories don’t feel like artifacts from the past. They feel like part of a conversation that is still unfolding.
The Iran War
Politics
Around the World
Other Big Stories
Can the war on Iran prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons? Yes. Previous attempts to rein in Iran’s nuclear program have only delayed the threat. Trump’s war on Iran was the “right decision for this, and future generations of Americans,” Van Hipp writes for Fox News. “And China and Russia are taking note that this president is different.” No. The war is a stark break from the diplomacy and stringent restrictions that went into the now-defunct nuclear deal with Iran. “What conclusion may countries draw from this episode?” Damian Murphy and Andrew Miller ask in DC Journal. “Perhaps, developing nuclear weapons is essential for maintaining power.”
When Rebecca Norris Webb needs solace, she heads to the Great Plains. After losing her father, she returned there — and encountered an owl bearing an unmistakable resemblance. At least one Palestinian citizen of Israel is killed each day, on average, largely by Arab organized crime and gun violence. To ease this crime wave, Israel should work to reduce its segregation and inequality, Mairav Zonszein writes. Here is a column by Maureen Dowd on MAGA’s version of “Wuthering Heights.” Morning readers: Save on the complete Times experience. Experience all of The Times, all in one subscription — all with this introductory offer. You’ll gain unlimited access to news and analysis, plus games, recipes, product reviews and more.
Hang zehn: Despite sitting 200 miles from the sea, Munich had a hopping surf community. But its most beloved spot, a human-made wave in a creek, has been ruined. Cute overload: Social media is flooded with A.I. videos of animals doing things beyond the bounds of belief. Those clips risk making us numb to nature’s real wonders. A wartime Ramadan: Missiles are falling across the Middle East as millions of people there fast and meditate on restraint. In Believing, Lauren Jackson explores the incongruity. (Sign up to get Believing here.) A sculptor: Thaddeus Mosley spent nearly 70 years creating bold wooden sculptures before finally gaining international attention in his early 90s. He died at 99.
N.C.A.A.: Top-ranked Duke defeated its rival North Carolina 76-61 last night, avenging its loss earlier this season. U.F.C.: The fight card for an event at the White House on June 14 will feature Ilia Topuria and Justin Gaethje competing for the UFC lightweight title.
“Brawler,” by Lauren Groff: If the nine stories in this best-selling collection have a theme, our critic writes, it’s “how the bedrock of family crumbles, and its members are forced to shift into new formations, occasionally tectonic.” Groff is best known for novels like “The Vaster Wilds” (2023) and “Fates and Furies” (2015), but in this trove of prickly, moving tales, she proves that it’s possible to contain entire worlds in a literary space the length of a sitcom (minus the com, in most cases). Brace for the gut punch at the end of the first one. Read our review.
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