Good News in History, November 16

30 years ago today, Benazir Bhutto became the first woman to lead a Muslim state when she was elected the Prime Minister of Pakistan in the first open election there in more than a decade. A liberal and secularist, she also led the centre-left Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) to victory in 1993 as a champion of democracy and women’s rights.

(1988)

Following United States-brokered negotiations with President Pervez Musharraf, she returned to Pakistan in 2007 to compete in the 2008 elections, emphasizing civilian oversight of the military and opposition to growing Islamist violence, but during a political rally in 2007, she was assassinated by Islamist extremists. She wrote an autobiography, Daughter of Destiny, and before her death authored Reconciliation: Islam, Democracy, and the West.

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