Until August 18, 1920, a woman’s right to vote was a states’ rights issue in America, determined by each individual state. In New York State and in most but not all of the states west of the Mississippi, women could vote on any issue presented on a ballot. In many states, women could only vote for president, but in some other states, women could only vote on local issues. Most of the states along the east coast completely denied women the right to vote.

In 1870, the 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution gave the vote to freed male slaves. It reads: “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”
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The first episode of South Park aired on Comedy Central on this date in 1997. It remains the only episode created entirely with paper cut-outs.

Despite its high ratings (a 1.3 at 10:00 p.m. on a basic cable channel that was less than 10 years old in 1997 was quite a solid performance and amounted to almost one million television sets tuned in), the episode did not win its creators a long-term contract for the show. Within a month, however, the program had doubled its viewership, by the end of the season it had quintupled its viewer numbers, and a hit was born.
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