*	Three major countries have never had a woman as leader. They are the United States, Italy and Japan.

*	The first G7 nation to have a woman as head of government or as head of state was Great Britain. Margaret Thatcher was elected prime minister in May 1979 — and served for more than 11 years.

*	Next was France, where Edith Cresson was prime minister in 1991/92 — and Canada, where Kim Campbell briefly served as prime minister in 1993.

*	Most recently, Angela Merkel became Germany’s Chancellor in November 2005 — making her that nation’s first woman head of government.

*	While not G7 nations, other important countries currently have female leaders. These include Finland, where Tarja Halonen has served as president since 2000 — and Ireland, where Mary McAleese was first elected president in 1997.

*	Other large democracies with women leaders include the world’s largest democracy, India, where Indira Gandhi was prime minister from 1966 to 1977 and from 1980 to 1984.

*	In Indonesia, the world’s third-largest democracy, Megawati Sukarnoputri served as the country’s president from 2001 to 2004.

*	The first woman in South America to be elected to the top national office — without replacing a deceased or disabled husband — was Michelle Bachelet, who became Chile’s president in January 2006.

*	The first African country to elect a woman as president was Liberia — where former World Bank economist Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf became head of state in January 2006.

*	The first elected female leader in the world was Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike, who first came to power in 1960.

The upshot

*	While Japan has never had a woman head of government or head of state, Takako Doi served as the nation’s first female speaker of the house from 1993 to 1996.

*	Nancy Pelosi’s elevation to Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives — the third-highest post in the U.S. government — seems long overdue. After all, it comes well over a decade after the same achievement was accomplished in Japan.