For more than a century, International Women’s Day has celebrated the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women throughout history and across nations.
The day is celebrated annually on March 8, which falls on a Sunday in 2026.
Here’s what to know as International Women’s Day nears.
What is International Women’s Day?
In addition to being a day to recognize women and their achievements, International Women’s Day also serves as “a call to action for accelerating gender parity,” the International Women’s Day website says.
According to IWD, you can partake in International Women’s Day by doing the following:
National holiday in some countries
In many countries, the day is a national holiday, such as in Russia, “where the sales of flowers double during the three or four days around 8 March,” the BBC reported.
“In Italy, International Women’s Day, or la Festa della Donna, is celebrated by the giving of mimosa blossom,” the BCC reported. “The origin of this tradition is unclear, but it is believed to have started in Rome after World War Two.”
International Women’s Day is not an official holiday in the United States, but the month of March is commemorated as Women’s History Month annually.
Why the purple, green, and white?
The colors purple, green, and white are used to symbolize International Women’s Day, according to IWD.
The colors were derived from the Women’s Social and Political Union in the UK in 1908, IWD says.
What’s the day’s history?
International Women’s Day has a lengthy history dating back to the early 1990s when there was a “great expansion and turbulence in the industrialized world that saw booming population growth and the rise of radical ideologies,” according to IWD.
Women began to grow vocal as widespread oppression and inequality were the norm, IWD says. In 1907, about 15,000 women marched through New York City demanding shorter hours, better pay and voting rights.
Two years later, as declared by the Socialist Party of America, the first National Women’s Day was observed in the United States on Feb. 28, IWD says.
In 1910, during the second International Conference of Working Women in Denmark, a woman named Clara Zetki presented the idea of an International Women’s Day, IWD says.
“She proposed that every year in every country there should be a celebration on the same day – a Women’s Day – to press for their demands,” IWD says.
Zetkin’s idea received unanimous approval from more than 100 women from 17 different countries, according to IWD.
After the conference, International Women’s Day was celebrated for the first time in Austria, Denmark, Germany, and Switzerland on March 19, 1911, IWD says.
“More than one million women and men attended IWD rallies campaigning for women’s rights to work, vote, be trained, to hold public office, and end discrimination,” according to IWD.
Russian women campaigning for peace first observed International Women’s Day on the eve of World War I on Feb. 23, 1913, IWD says.
“Following discussions, International Women’s Day was agreed to be marked annually on March 8, which translates to February 23 in the widely adopted Gregorian calendar, from February 23 and this day has remained the global date for International Women’s Day ever since,” according to IWD.
In 1975, the United Nations recognized International Women’s Day for the first time, IWD says.
By the new millennium, however, momentum for International Women’s Day had slowed.
“The world had moved on and, in many spheres, feminism wasn’t a popular topic,” IWD says.
In 2011, on the day’s 100th anniversary, “President Barack Obama proclaimed March 2011 to be ‘Women’s History Month,’ calling Americans to mark IWD by reflecting on ‘the extraordinary accomplishments of women’ in shaping the country’s history,” IWD says.
“In the United Kingdom, celebrity activist Annie Lennox led a march across one of London’s iconic bridges raising awareness in support of global charity Women for Women International,” according to IWD.
Celebrities and business leaders also began to actively support the day.
“(The day) was finally starting to become more mainstream and inclusive, with groups everywhere participating,” the International Women’s Day website says.
This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: What to know about International Women’s Day 2026 on March 8
Reporting by Daniella Segura, Palm Springs Desert Sun / Palm Springs Desert Sun
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
