Every year for more than a century 8 March has been recognised as International Women's Day.

Many governments and organisations across the world mark the occasion celebrating the role and rights of women.

Historically, women and girls have not been treated as equal to men and boys and across the world in many countries women still face discrimination because of their gender.

International Women's Day was first celebrated more than one hundred years ago, in 1911.

The day was inspired by the work of thousands of suffragists, who were campaigning for more rights for women, including the right to vote.

The United Nations officially recognised International Women's Day in 1977 and some countries recognise International Women's Day as a public holiday including in China, Russia and Uganda.

However the struggle for women's rights began long before International Women's Day was established.

For example, only since the suffragette movement in the early 20th Century did women get the right to vote here in the UK.

For thousands of years, women have faced discrimination in many societies across the world.

In ancient Rome, laws - created by men - ensured that women had no public voice and no role in public life.

Confucian philosophy in China suggested women held less status than men, with the 3rd century writer Fu Xuan musing in a now famous poem, "How sad it is to be a woman! Nothing on earth is held so cheap."

This inequality between genders continued until the 19th Century, when an afternoon tea sparked a revolution.

An American rights activist, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, held the first Women's Rights convention in New York in 1848.

She called for changes to be made to the laws so that women could have an equal place within society.

Elizabeth, and others like her, wanted women to have the right to vote, and to have control over their own money and property.