From The Writer's Almanac for 3/8/2011

Today is  International Women's Day, which has been celebrated in the United States, Russia,  and parts of Europe since the turn of the 20th  century. It was during this holiday in 1917 that women workers in Russia left  factories and took to the streets to protest food shortages. When Czar Nicholas  II ordered the military to intervene, they did not. Shortly afterward, he  abdicated, and shortly after that, women in Russia  were given the right to vote, three years before women in the U.S.  International Women's Day is celebrated in 28 countries and  recognized by the United Nations.