Fun Fact: The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was the first country to recognise International Womens' Day as an official/national holiday, in 1917 by Leon Trotsky and Vladimir Lenin. Later on 8 May 1965, it was declared as a non-work day by the USSR Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, stating it was "in commemoration of the outstanding merits of Soviet women in communistic construction, in the defence of their Motherland during the Great Patriotic War."