Dorothy Levitt, English racing driver and journalist (b. 1882)
Dorothy Elizabeth Levitt, (born Elizabeth Levi; 5 January 1882 – 17 May 1922) was the first British woman racing driver, holder of the world's first water speed record, the women's world land speed record holder, and an author. She was a pioneer of female independence and female motoring, and taught Queen Alexandra and the Royal Princesses how to drive. In 1905 she established the record for the longest drive achieved by a lady driver by driving a De Dion-Bouton from London to Liverpool and back over two days, receiving the soubriquets in the press of the Fastest Girl on Earth, and the Champion Lady Motorist of the World.
Levitt's book The Woman and the Car: A Chatty Little Handbook for all Women who Motor or Who Want to Motor, recommended that women should "carry a little hand-mirror in a convenient place when driving" so they may "hold the mirror aloft from time to time in order to see behind while driving in traffic", thus inventing the rear-view mirror before it was introduced by manufacturers in 1914. She also advised women travelling alone to carry a handgun; her recommendation was an automatic Colt, as in her opinion its relative lack of recoil made it particularly suitable for women.
Levitt's 1903 court case against a GPO van driver who had hit her car was another landmark, the first legal case in England won by the driver of a self-propelled vehicle.
1922May, 17
Dorothy Levitt
Choose Another Date
Events on 1922
- 11Jan
Diabetes mellitus
First use of insulin to treat diabetes in a human patient. - 2Feb
James Joyce
Ulysses by James Joyce is published. - 13Sep
Great Fire of Smyrna
The final act of the Greco-Turkish War, the Great Fire of Smyrna, commences. - 4Nov
Tutankhamun
In Egypt, British archaeologist Howard Carter and his men find the entrance to Tutankhamun's tomb in the Valley of the Kings. - 24Nov
Executions during the Irish Civil War
Nine Irish Republican Army members are executed by an Irish Free State firing squad. Among them is author Robert Erskine Childers, who had been arrested for illegally carrying a revolver.