50 Fun Facts About International Women's Day

On which date is International Women's Day celebrated each year?

The date was fixed in memory of the Petrograd women whose 1917 demonstration helped bring down the Russian monarchy.

The earliest reported 'Woman's Day', organized by the Socialist Party of America in 1909, was held where?

It was held on 28 February at the suggestion of activist Theresa Malkiel; Americans kept observing the day on the last Sunday of February for years.

Which German socialist proposed an annual 'Working Women's Day' in 1910?

Her proposal came with no fixed date; the first observances happened across Europe the following year.

The 1910 socialist women's conference that endorsed a Women's Day met in which city?

It was held ahead of the general meeting of the Socialist Second International, and the idea was pitched partly as a strategy to win women the vote.

Roughly how many delegates from 17 countries agreed to a Women's Day at the 1910 conference?

They backed the day as a way to promote equal rights, including women's suffrage, but left the calendar date open.

In what year was the first International Women's Day marked, with over a million taking part?

Austria-Hungary alone saw 300 demonstrations, with women parading along Vienna's Ringstrasse.

The Petrograd women textile workers' demonstration of 8 March 1917 began which event?

The date was 23 February on the Julian calendar Russia still used, which is why the two names for the same event look a fortnight apart.

What two-word slogan did the Petrograd women textile workers raise when they walked out on 8 March 1917?

The demands were an end to World War I, to food shortages and to Tsarism; Trotsky later admitted nobody had imagined Women's Day would start the revolution.

How long after the Petrograd women's demonstration of 8 March 1917 began did Tsar Nicholas II abdicate?

The provisional government that followed granted Russian women the right to vote.

In which country did International Women's Day first fall on 8 March, in 1914?

That year's observance there was dedicated to the vote, which women in that country did not win until 1918.

Which leader declared 8 March International Women's Day in 1922?

For decades afterwards the day was celebrated mainly in communist countries before second-wave feminists took it up in the late 1960s.

Which country's delegation proposed a single worldwide date for Women's Day at the 1921 Communist Women's conference?

A Russian representative then proposed 8 March in memory of the Petrograd women, and the vote was unanimous.

When the newly founded People's Republic made 8 March an official holiday in 1949, what were women given?

Communists there had observed the day since 1922, and a 1927 march in Guangzhou drew 25,000 women and male supporters.

In which year did the Supreme Soviet make 8 March a non-working public holiday in the USSR?

The decree cited Soviet women's achievements in building communism and defending the motherland during the Great Patriotic War.

The UN first celebrated the day in 1975, which it had proclaimed as what?

Two years later the General Assembly invited member states to proclaim a UN Day for Women's Rights and International Peace, and each year's observance now carries a theme.

Which yellow flower is given to women on International Women's Day in Italy and Russia?

The plant is actually an Australian native, Acacia dealbata or silver wattle, that blooms in late winter just in time for 8 March.

Which three colours did the Women's Social and Political Union adopt in 1908?

Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence chose them: royal blood, purity in private and public life, and hope as the emblem of spring.

International Men's Day, often mentioned alongside Women's Day, is observed annually on which date?

Jerome Teelucksingh revived the event in Trinidad and Tobago in 1999 and picked the date to honour his father's birthday.

Which country observes Women's History Month in October rather than March?

October was chosen to coincide with Persons Day on 18 October, the anniversary of the 1929 court ruling that women were legally 'persons'.

What denomination coin did Australia issue for International Women's Day's centenary in 2011?

The coin reads 'CELEBRATING 100 YEARS' twelve times over; the Australian Women Chamber of Commerce & Industry launched the same day.

A Tehran women's march on 8 March 1979 became six days of protest against what?

The protests won a temporary retraction of the decree, but veiling was enforced on all women once conservatives secured sole control.

Stalin's 1927 Hujum campaign against female veiling and seclusion targeted which region?

The word means 'storming' or 'assault' in Turkic languages, borrowed from Arabic.

Australia's first International Women's Day rally, in 1928, was held in the Domain of which city?

Organized by the Communist Party's Militant Women's Group, it demanded equal pay for equal work and eight-hour days for female shop clerks.

The proposer of the 1910 Women's Day resolution edited which German socialist newspaper for women for 25 years?

The title means 'Equality'; its editor later sat in the Reichstag from 1920 to 1933 and was a close friend of Rosa Luxemburg.

Anahita Ratebzad's 8 March 1965 march in Kabul was the first International Women's Day observance where?

Nearly half a century later, on the same day in 2012, Kabul opened its first internet cafe for women.

Which country was the first to grant all women the vote in national elections, in 1893?

The campaign was led by Kate Sheppard, and the Electoral Bill received royal assent on 19 September 1893.

Swiss women gained the right to vote in federal elections after a referendum in which year?

The last canton, Appenzell Innerrhoden, only let women vote on local matters after a federal court decision in 1990.

The US Nineteenth Amendment went into effect after which state narrowly ratified it on 18 August 1920?

It passed the state House by 50 votes to 49, delivering the 36th ratification needed.

Who became the first woman in space when she flew a solo mission aboard Vostok 6 in June 1963?

She orbited Earth 48 times, remains the only woman ever to fly a solo space mission, and used the call sign 'Chaika', meaning seagull.

Who became the world's first woman elected prime minister, in Ceylon in 1960?

She held the office three separate times and in 1976 became the first woman to chair the Non-Aligned Movement.

Who became the world's first democratically elected female president, in Iceland in 1980?

She served 16 years, making her the longest-serving elected female head of state in history.

What share of Iceland's women took part in the 24 October 1975 women's strike?

Banks, factories and shops shut down, and Iceland's parliament passed an equal pay law the following year.

Who was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize?

She remains the only person to win Nobel Prizes in two different sciences, physics in 1903 and chemistry in 1911.

Who became the first woman awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, in 1905?

The Prague-born pacifist wrote the anti-war novel Lay Down Your Arms and was the second female Nobel laureate overall.

Who is the youngest Nobel laureate in history, receiving the Peace Prize at age 17?

She was shot by a Taliban gunman on a school bus in 2012 for campaigning for girls' education, and won the prize two years later.

Nobel laureate Wangari Maathai founded which tree-planting organisation?

The Kenyan activist won the 2004 prize for her contribution to sustainable development, democracy and peace.

Who became the first American woman to fly in space, aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger in 1983?

At 32 she was also the youngest American astronaut to fly, and only the third woman in space overall.

Who became the first African-American woman in space, as a mission specialist aboard Endeavour in 1992?

A lifelong Star Trek fan inspired by Nichelle Nichols, she later appeared in an episode of The Next Generation.

Which Japanese climber became the first woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest, in May 1975?

She summited twelve days after an avalanche buried her camp, and later became the first woman to complete the Seven Summits.

In 1967 Kathrine Switzer became the first woman to run which race as an officially registered competitor?

Race manager Jock Semple tried to rip off her bib mid-race; her boyfriend shoved him aside and she finished.

Billie Jean King's 1973 tennis victory over 55-year-old Bobby Riggs is known by what name?

King was 29 at the time and won in straight sets in the middle of the Virginia Slims of Houston tournament.

Ada Lovelace, often called the first computer programmer, wrote her notes about which proposed machine?

Her notes described a method for calculating Bernoulli numbers that is often called the first published computer program.

Computing pioneer Grace Hopper, who helped create COBOL, reached which rank in the US Navy?

She was still serving at 79, making her one of the oldest active-duty officers in Navy history.

Which US president nominated Sandra Day O'Connor, the first woman on the Supreme Court, in 1981?

He had pledged during his 1980 campaign to appoint the first woman to the Court.

Kathryn Bigelow became the first woman to win the Academy Award for Best Director for which film?

She beat her ex-husband James Cameron, nominated the same year for Avatar.

Benazir Bhutto was the first woman elected to head a democratic government in which Muslim-majority country?

She served two terms as prime minister, from 1988 to 1990 and again from 1993 to 1996.

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Africa's first elected female head of state, led which country?

She shared the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize for her work bringing women into the peacekeeping process.

Over which body of water did Amelia Earhart disappear in 1937 during her circumnavigation attempt?

Five years earlier she had become the first woman to fly solo nonstop across the Atlantic.

Who became the first female vice president of the United States in 2021?

Of Indian and Jamaican parentage, she was also the first African American and first Asian American to hold the office.

Rosalind Franklin's famous X-ray image 'Photo 51' revealed the structure of which molecule?

The image was shown to James Watson without her permission and helped Watson, Crick and Wilkins to the 1962 Nobel Prize.