Four countries participated in the first International Women’s Day celebrations in 1911.
The first internationally coordinated observances took place on 19 March 1911 in Austria, Denmark, Germany, and Switzerland. More than a million people attended rallies and meetings, where activists called for women’s voting rights, the right to work, access to public office, and an end to discrimination in employment.
The date was not yet fixed as 8 March. International Women’s Day was moved to that date during the First World War era, and the 1917 women’s demonstrations in Petrograd helped make 8 March especially important in the international calendar. The United Nations began officially observing the day in 1975 and promoted it internationally through a 1977 resolution.
The 1911 figure refers to countries holding the first coordinated celebrations, not to the number of places where women’s-rights activism already existed. National women’s days and suffrage campaigns had preceded the event, particularly in the United States.