Katharine Graham was an American newspaper publisher. She led her family’s newspaper, The Washington Post, from 1963 to 1991. Graham presided over the paper as it reported on the Watergate scandal, which eventually led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon.

She was the first 20th century female publisher of a major American newspaper and the first woman elected to the board of the Associated Press. Graham died on this day, July 17, in 2001 (b. 1917).