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Today in Labor History March 8, 1911: The first modern International Women’s Day was celebrated in Austria, Denmark, Switzerland, Germany and the U.S. IWD has its roots in the suffrage movement of New Zealand, and leftist labor organizing in the U.S. and Europe. The earliest Women’s Days were organized by the Socialist Party of America, in New York, in 1909, and by German socialists in 1910. They chose the date of March 8 in honor of the garment workers strikes in New York that occurred on March 8, in 1857 and 1908. However, the first IWD celebrated on March 8, the current date, was in 1911. The holiday was associated primarily with far-left movements until the feminist movement adopted it in the 1960s, when it became a more mainstream celebration.