By: History.com Editors

2021

Kamala Harris becomes first female vice president

History.com Editors

Published: January 18, 2022

Last Updated: February 18, 2025

Kamala Harris makes history when she is sworn in as the 49th U.S. vice president on January 20, 2021, becoming the first woman, the first Black American and the first Asian American to occupy the office.

Groundbreaking Women in Politics

From historical figures like Jeannette Rankin, the first woman in Congress, to modern ones like Tammy Duckworth, the first disabled person in Congress, meet 5 women who have paved the way for others in politics.

When Harris was chosen as Joe Biden’s running mate in August 2020, the former California senator and attorney general, the daughter of Jamaican and Indian immigrants, became the third woman to be named on a major political party’s ticket, following Geraldine Ferraro (chosen by Walter Mondale) in 1984 and Sarah Palin (chosen by John McCain) in 2008. Harris made her own presidential bid in the 2020 Democratic Party’s primary before suspending her campaign and endorsing Biden. Together, they defeated incumbents Donald Trump and Mike Pence.

“In many ways, this moment embodies our character as a nation,” Harris said on the evening of her inauguration. “It demonstrates who we are. Even in dark times—we not only dream. We do. We not only see what has been, we see what can be.”

As first in line for the U.S. presidency, Harris has come closer than any woman before her to breaking what Hillary Clinton famously called “the highest, hardest glass ceiling.”

Timeline

Also on This Day in History

Discover more of the major events, famous births, notable deaths and everything else history-making that happened on January 20th

1764

John Wilkes expelled from British Parliament

Early in the morning of January 20, 1764, the British Parliament expels John Wilkes from its ranks for his reputedly libelous, seditious and pornographic writings. Over the next 12 years, Wilkes’ name became a byword for Parliamentary oppression both in Britain and in Britain’s North American colonies. Wilkes earned the ouster by impugning the integrity […]

1841

Hong Kong ceded to the British

During the First Opium War, China cedes the island of Hong Kong to the British with the signing of the Chuenpi Convention, an agreement seeking an end to the first Anglo-Chinese conflict. In 1839, Britain invaded China to crush opposition to its interference in the country’s economic and political affairs. One of Britain’s first acts […]

1863

Mud March begins

On January 20, 1863, Union General Ambrose Burnside’s Army of the Potomac begins an offensive against General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia that quickly bogs down as several days of heavy rain turn the roads of Virginia into a muddy quagmire. The campaign was abandoned a few days later. The Union army was […]

Union soldiers of the Army of the Potomac under the command of Major General Ambrose Burnside attempt to cross the Rappahannock River in pouring rain on January 20, 1863 during the "Mud March" of the Fredericksburg Campaign of the American Civil War.

1937

FDR inaugurated to second term

On January 20, 1937, President Franklin D. Roosevelt is inaugurated for the second time as president, beginning the second of four terms in the office. His first inauguration, in 1933, had been held in March, but the 20th Amendment, passed later that year, made January 20 the official inauguration date for all future presidents. (The […]

1942

Nazi officials discuss “Final Solution” at the Wannsee Conference

Nazi officials meet to discuss the details of the “Final Solution” of the “Jewish question.” In July 1941, Hermann Goering, writing under instructions from Hitler, had ordered Reinhard Heydrich, SS general and Heinrich Himmler’s number-two man, to submit “as soon as possible a general plan of the administrative, material, and financial measures necessary for carrying […]

1945

FDR inaugurated to fourth term

On January 20, 1945, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the only president to be elected to three terms in office, is inaugurated to his fourth—and final—term. At the height of the Great Depression, Roosevelt, then governor of New York, was elected the 32nd president of the United States. In his inaugural address in 1933, President Roosevelt promised […]

FDR

1961

John F. Kennedy inaugurated

On January 20, 1961, on the newly renovated east front of the United States Capitol, John Fitzgerald Kennedy is inaugurated as the 35th president of the United States. It was a cold and clear day, and the nation’s capital was covered with a snowfall from the previous night. The ceremony began with a religious invocation […]

1969

Richard Nixon takes office

Richard Nixon is inaugurated as president of the United States and says, “After a period of confrontation [in Vietnam], we are entering an era of negotiation.” Eight years after losing to John F. Kennedy in the 1960 election, Nixon had defeated Hubert H. Humphrey for the presidency. Shortly after taking office, Nixon put his new […]

1971

Marvin Gaye’s hit single “What’s Going On?” released

January 20, 1971, sees the release of Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On?” In addition to being a massive hit, the song marked a turning point in Gaye’s career and in the trajectory of Motown. Gaye achieved popularity in the 1960s with songs like “How Sweet it Is (To Be Loved by You)” and “I Heard […]

1973

Country star Jerry Lee Lewis rocks the Grand Ole Opry

Years after he was known as “The Killer,”, a rock pioneer who released such rock standards as “Great Balls of Fire” and “Breathless,” Jerry Lee Lewis made a name for himself in a very different musical genre: country. And on January 20, 1973, he capped off his road to country stardom with an appearance at […]

1980

President Carter calls for Olympics to be moved from Moscow

On January 20, 1980, in a letter to the United States Olympic Committee (USOC) and a television interview, U.S. President Jimmy Carter proposes that the 1980 Summer Olympics be moved from the planned host city, Moscow, if the Soviet Union failed to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan within a month. “It’s very important for the […]

1980

Bullfight spectators die when bleachers collapse

On January 20, 1980, bleachers at a bullring in Sincelejo, Colombia, collapse, resulting in the deaths of 222 people. The collapse at Sincelejo, the deadliest tragedy at a sporting event in Colombia’s history, was the result of overcrowding and poor construction. In addition to the 222 spectators killed, hundreds more were injured. Despite the fact […]

1981

Iran Hostage Crisis ends

Minutes after Ronald Reagan’s inauguration as the 40th president of the United States, the 52 U.S. captives held at the U.S. embassy in Teheran, Iran, are released, ending the 444-day Iran Hostage Crisis.

Welcome Home Hostages

1981

Ronald Reagan becomes president

Ronald Reagan, former Western movie actor and host of television’s popular “Death Valley Days” is sworn in as the 40th president of the United States. More than any president since the Texas-born Lyndon Johnson, Ronald Reagan’s public image was closely tied to the American West, although he was raised in the solidly Midwestern state of […]

1993

Actress Audrey Hepburn dies

One of America’s most beloved actresses, Audrey Hepburn, dies on January 20, 1993, near her home in Lausanne, Switzerland. The 63-year-old Hepburn had undergone surgery for colon cancer the previous November. The daughter of an aristocratic Dutch mother and an English businessman father, Hepburn was born in Brussels, Belgium, and educated mostly in England. During […]

Audrey Hepburn.

1996

Yasser Arafat elected leader of Palestine

Yasser Arafat is elected president of the Palestinian National Council with 88.1 percent of the popular vote, becoming the first democratically elected leader of the Palestinian people in history. Arafat, the founder of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), originally employed guerilla warfare and terrorism against Israel in his struggle for an independent Palestinian state. However, […]

2009

Barack Obama is inaugurated

On a freezing day in Washington, D.C., Barack Hussein Obama is sworn in as the 44th U.S. president. The son of a Black father from Kenya and a white mother from Kansas, Obama had become the first African American to win election to the nation’s highest office the previous November. As the junior U.S. senator […]

2017

Donald Trump is inaugurated

In the culmination of his extraordinary rise to power over a tumultuous election year, Donald John Trump is inaugurated as the 45th president of the United States in Washington, D.C. From the time he kicked off his presidential campaign in June 2015 at his namesake Trump Tower in New York City, Trump seemed an unlikely […]

2020

First confirmed case of COVID-19 found in U.S.

Following a rapid spread from its origin in Wuhan, China, the first U.S. case of the 2019 novel coronavirus, which causes a disease known as COVID-19, is confirmed in a man from Washington State on January 20, 2020.  The virus, which would spark a pandemic, was first reported in China on December 31, 2019. Halfway […]

This Day In History: First confirmed case of COVID-19 found in U.S.

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Citation Information

Article title
Kamala Harris becomes first female vice president
Website Name
History
Date Accessed
March 25, 2025
Publisher
A&E Television Networks
Last Updated
February 18, 2025
Original Published Date
January 18, 2022

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