In 1914, International Women's Day was held on 8 March for the first time in Germany.
International Women's Day did not begin with a fixed date. After socialist women proposed an annual international day at a conference in Copenhagen in 1910, countries organized events on different dates. The first large observance, in 1911, took place on 19 March in Germany, Austria-Hungary, Denmark and Switzerland.
Germany used 8 March for the first time in 1914, probably because it fell on a Sunday, making mass participation easier. The event focused heavily on women's suffrage: German women could not vote in national elections until the political changes of 1918.
A common mix-up is to assume that 8 March was the original date everywhere. Russia observed the occasion in 1913 using its Julian calendar; that event corresponded to 8 March in the Gregorian calendar. The date became internationally standardized later, especially through the communist women's movement in 1921, which linked it to the 1917 demonstrations in Petrograd.