Who was the world’s first woman to become prime minister?

Sirimavo Bandaranaike was the world’s first woman to become prime minister.

She became prime minister of Ceylon, now Sri Lanka, in 1960 after her Sri Lanka Freedom Party won the general election. Her achievement made her the first woman in the world to lead a government through the office of prime minister.

Bandaranaike entered politics after the assassination of her husband, Prime Minister S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike, in 1959. She served as prime minister three times: from 1960 to 1965, from 1970 to 1977, and from 1994 to 2000.

Her governments promoted socialist economic policies and strengthened the role of the Sinhala language and Buddhist institutions, decisions that affected Sri Lanka’s later political and ethnic tensions. She was succeeded by other influential female leaders, including India’s Indira Gandhi and the United Kingdom’s Margaret Thatcher, but both entered office after Bandaranaike.