Benazir Bhutto Takes Office

Date: December 2, 1988 • Location: Rome, Italy

Benazir Bhutto (pictured) took office as Prime Minister of Pakistan, becoming the first woman to head the government of a Muslim-majority state.

Benazir Bhutto was a Pakistani stateswoman who twice served as the Prime Minister of Pakistan from 1988 to 1990 and again from 1993 to 1996. She was the first woman elected to head a democratic government in a Muslim-majority country. Ideologically a liberal and a secularist, she chaired the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) from 1982 until her assassination in 2007.