Sirimavo Bandaranaike (1916-2000) became the first woman prime minister in the world when she was chosen to head the Sri Lankan Freedom Party government in 1960, following the assassination of her husband. She pursued policies of nonalignment abroad and democratic socialism at home.

Sirimavo (also Sirima) Ratwatte Dias Bandaranaike was born on April 17, 1916, to an aristocratic Kandyan family and was educated in a Roman Catholic convent in Colombo. Married to Solomon West Ridgeway Dias (SWRD) Bandaranaike in 1940 when he was a minister in the government of Ceylon, then a British crown colony, Bandaranaike's life was politically uneventful. She had the preoccupations of a housewife married to an eminent national leader who became the prime minister of Ceylon in 1956, eight years after its independence. In 1959, however, SWRD Bandaranaike was assassinated by a Buddhist monk, and such was SWRD's charisma that his party, the Sri Lankan Freedom Party (SLFP), chose Sirimavo...