March 8th is International Women’s Day (𝗪𝗲𝗹𝘁𝗳𝗿𝗮𝘂𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗮𝗴)! 
The first Women’s Day took place on February 28th, 1909 in the United States, organized by the Socialist Party of America who were joined in their efforts to achieve women’s voting rights by the suffragists.
At the Second International Socialist Women’s Conference in Copenhagen in 1910, the idea of a Women’s Day in Europe, inspired by the American one, was born. The German socialists Clara Zetkin and Käte Duncker (contemporaries and friends of Rosa Luxemburg) played an important role in this resolution. The first European Women’s Day took place on March 19th, 1911 in Germany, Austria-Hungary, Switzerland, and Denmark. The date was chosen to create a connection to the March Revolution of 1848 whose fallen were honored on March 18th.
The Women’s Day largely consisted of protest and demonstrations for Women’s suffrage but also for Women’s rights to work. On the eve of World War I, many socialist organizations turned their activism into anti-war protests.
Dates for the International Women’s Day varied throughout.
In 1921, at the Second International Conference of Communist Women in Moscow, it was decided that International Women’s Day should take place on March 8th. The date was chosen to honor the women of the February Revolution of 1917 in Russia. The protests that forced Tsar Nicholas II to abdicate started on February 23rd in the Julian calendar. The equivalent date in the Gregorian calendar is March 8th.
The situation of the Russian people was miserable in 1917, many had already died in WWI, there was a shortage of food, the work situation for factory workers and farmers alike was unsustainable, discontent with the monarchy was growing.
On March 8th of 1917 in Petrograd (now St. Petersburg), people took to the streets demanding bread and peace. Among them women: farmers, soldiers’ wives, and workers who went on strike from the Putilov factory.
The International Women’s Day is a national holiday in many countries around the world like Eritrea, Afghanistan, Russia, Ukraine, Cambodia, Angola, and others.
In Germany, March 8th has been a national holiday in the city-state Berlin since 2019.
