Janet Reno was a first-generation American. Her father immigrated from Denmark and settled in Florida, taking a job on the police beat for the Miami Herald. Her mother was a stay-at-home mom, and later also went into reporting. Reno herself excelled at school and college. In 1960, when the hurdles for women trying to reach the top of business and society were immense, she enrolled at Harvard Law School — one of only 15 female students in a class of 500. Even after graduation she was turned down by firm after firm, in spite of her Harvard degree. Despite that adversity, she went on to achieve something no other woman had done before.

On this day, March 11, in 1993, Janet Reno was sworn in by Bill Clinton, becoming the first woman ever to serve as the Attorney General.

Reno impressed many during her confirmation hearings, answering questions directly and unequivocally. As she told TIME magazine, in a cover story that called her “the real thing,” “A lot of people had different advice on how I should handle confirmation hearings, and I said basically that I had to be myself. I talked about the things I cared about.” That advice was well carried into her entire career as Attorney General.