On this day (February 28) in 1933, the 32nd President of the United States, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, made history by appointing Frances Perkins Secretary of Labor, the first woman to hold a cabinet post. More than 80 years later, a vocal segment of American political commentators are in a state of panic over the "inevitability" of a woman, one Hilary Rodham Clinton, becoming their nation's 45th president. It would be comic if it weren't so very sad. For a country that claims to be the world's leader, the U.S. remains the last significant democracy to never have been led by a woman. To date, the major English-speaking nations all have had female prime ministers, including the United Kingdom (Margaret Thatcher), Australia (Julia Gillard), Canada (Kim Campbell), Ireland (Mary Robinson) and New Zealand (Helen Clark). So, too, Europe's dynamic duo, France (Edith Cresson) and Germany (Angela Merkel), as well as major U.S. allies, such as India (Indira Gandhi), Israel (Golda Meir) and Pakistan (Benazir Bhutto). Last Sunday (February 22), Oscar-winning actress Patricia Arquette drew criticism for making a passionate, 24-second plea for wage equality and "for equal rights for every woman in the United States of America." The reaction suggests that the U.S. still has a way to go to realize its own best ideals, a truth well known to activist Broadway diva Bernadette Peters. Born on this day (February 28) in 1948, Peters co-starred in a feature film based on the life of 19th-century French feminist George Sand, 1991's Impromptu.