12 March 1994: The Church of England ordains its first women priests

After much debate and an awful lot of controversy, the Church of England finally ordained its first women priests on this day in 1994.

Since the Church of England's split with Rome in 1534, it's always trodden a dainty path between the Catholicism of the High Church, and the Protestantism of the Reformation. That's meant a fair few compromises. But one thing it didn't compromise on for nearly 400 years was ordaining women as priests.

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Ben Judge

Ben studied modern languages at London University's Queen Mary College. After dabbling unhappily in local government finance for a while, he went to work for The Scotsman newspaper in Edinburgh. The launch of the paper's website, scotsman.com, in the early years of the dotcom craze, saw Ben move online to manage the Business and Motors channels before becoming deputy editor with responsibility for all aspects of online production for The Scotsman, Scotland on Sunday and the Edinburgh Evening News websites, along with the papers' Edinburgh Festivals website.

Ben joined MoneyWeek as website editor in 2008, just as the Great Financial Crisis was brewing. He has written extensively for the website and magazine, with a particular emphasis on alternative finance and fintech, including blockchain and bitcoin. 

As an early adopter of bitcoin, Ben bought when the price was under $200, but went on to spend it all on foolish fripperies.