History of May Day
In Celtic times, the Celts on the British Isles believed that the day the festival of Beltane was held on 1 May was the most important day of the year as it divided the year in half between light and dark. As a result, the Celts would light symbolic fires to help with celebrating the return of life and fertility to the world. The Romans then combined this with their five-day celebration of the flower goddess Floralia, which took place between 20 April and 2 May. Thus, Floralia and
Beltane were combined into one.
In the middle ages, villages would enter the woods to find a maypole that would be set up for the day in the town as a part of a fertility ritual with baskets and wreaths symbolising female fertility and the pole representing male fertility.
History of May Day and International Workers' Day During the Industrial Revolution, thousands of men, women and even children died every year from long hours and poor working conditions in the United States. The Federation of Organised Trades and Labour Union (now the American Federation of Labour) held a convention in Chicago and declared that "after 1 May 1886, a legal day's labour shall constitute as eight hours". Workers were encouraged to strike and demonstrate. Over 300,000 workers from 13,000 businesses went on strike and more joined. A riot ensued on 3 May 1886 which shocked the world and saw further strikes globally. Workers' history on 1 May was eventually embraced by many global governments.
Nowadays, not only are there still maypole festivals on 1 May, but there is also workers that continue to ask for justice through protest in many forms like the Debenhams Ireland workers who as of 1 May 2021, are fighting to get their redundancy pay after the business shut.
As for the distress call Mayday-Mayday-Mayday, it actually has nothing to do with festivals or workers' rights. Rather, it was invented by Frederick Mockford who coined the phrase as a word to be easily understood by pilots and ground staff in case of an emergency as it sounded like "m'aider" which is the French term for "come and help me" shortened down.
