Sirimavo Bandaranaike

About 20 years before the first woman was democratically elected in 1980 as president of a country (Iceland), stateswoman Sirimavo Bandaranaike of Ceylon (present-day Sri Lanka) was elected as prime minister, when she led her party to victory at the 1960 general election. She became the first woman in modern history to become a non-hereditary head of a government.