Photo credits: Brian Bahr/AFP/Getty Images

Carol Moseley Braun (pictured) of Illinois made history by becoming the first and only African-American woman elected to the United States Senate on Nov. 3, 1992.

She was also the only woman to be elected to the Senate from that state. She was also the first woman to defeat an incumbent senator in an election, winning against Alan Dixon in the Democratic primary.

Braun was born in Chicago and attended the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana. She later received a political science degree from the University of Illinois at Chicago and a law degree from the University of Chicago Law School in 1972.

Before being elected to the Senate, Braun served as the United States ambassador to New Zealand from 1999 to 2001. She was appointed to this privileged position by President Bill Clinton.

She was a one-term senator, losing to Republican Peter Fitzgerald in her 1998 re-election race. She was a candidate for the Democratic nomination for president in 2004.

In 2011, she became a candidate for mayor of Chicago, losing to Rahm Emanuel.

Reference: Hicks, J. (2012 November 03) This Day in Black History: Nov. 3, 1992. Retrieved from https://www.bet.com/news/national/2012/11/03/this-day-in-black-history-nov-3-1992.html

*BlackThen.com writer and historian Victor Trammell edited and contributed to his report.