International Women’s Day: In 1909 in accordance with a declaration by the Socialist Party of America, the first National Woman's Day was observed across the United States on 28 February. Women continued to celebrate it on the last Sunday of that month through 1913. In 1910 the Socialist International, meeting in Copenhagen, established a Women's Day, international in character, to honor the movement for women's rights and to assist in achieving universal suffrage for women. In 1911 as a result of the decision taken at Copenhagen the previous year, International Women's Day was marked for the first time (19 March) in Austria, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland, where more than one million women and men attended rallies. As part of the peace movement brewing on the eve of World War I, Russian women observed their first International Women's Day on the last Sunday in February 1913. In 1917 with 2 million Russian soldiers dead in the war, Russian women again chose the last Sunday in February to strike for "bread and peace". Four days later the Czar was forced to abdicate and the provisional Government granted women the right to vote. That historic Sunday fell on 23 February on the Julian calendar then in use in Russia, but on 8 March on the Gregorian calendar in use elsewhere.


1911
Mar 8, International Women's Day was established when American working women demonstrated for their rights as workers and women.

1917
Mar 8, Russian women commenced a strike for "bread and peace" in response to the death over 2 million Russian soldiers in war. This was 23 February on the Julian calendar then in use in Russia. This day on the Gregorian calendar in use elsewhere was 8 March.


1975
Mar 8, The United Nations began observing International Women's Day.


1999
Mar 8, Alice Munro of Canada won the National Book Critics Circle award for fiction for her short-story collection "The Love of a Good Woman." Philip Gourevitch won the nonfiction award for "We Wish To Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families," a work on the Rwandan genocide. Sylvia Nassar won the biography award for her work on John Forbes Nash Jr., Nobel laureate in mathematics. Gary Giddins won the award for criticism for "Visions of Jazz: The First Century."



2003
Mar 8, Thousands of US women staged "Code Pink" marches against a possible war with Iraq. Some 4,000 marched near the White House.


2006
Mar 8, Thousands of women from villages and cities across patriarchal Asia took to the streets for International Women's Day to press for freedom, equal rights and an end to discriminatory laws.


2011
Mar 8, Guatemala's first lady, Sandra Torres de Colom, announced that she will be the presidential candidate of the governing National Unity for Hope party in the September election.