[h=5]
Yee Jenn Jong, JJ (余振忠)[/h]
Some First of May fun facts...
International Workers' Day (Labour Day) is the commemoration of the May 4, 1886 Haymarket affair in Chicago. The police were trying to disperse a public assembly during a general strike for the 8-hour workday, when an unidentified person threw a bomb at the police. The police responded by firing on the workers, killing four demonstrators.
In 1889, the first congress of the Second International, meeting in Paris for the centennial of the French Revolution and the Exposition Universelle, called for international demonstrations on the 1890 anniversary of the Chicago protests.
Subsequently, the May Day Riots of 1894 occurred. In 1904, the International Socialist Conference meeting in Amsterdam called on "all Social Democratic Party organizations and trade unions of all countries to demonstrate energetically on May First for the legal establishment of the 8-hour day, for the class demands of the proletariat, and for universal peace."
In many countries, the working classes sought to make May Day an official holiday, and their efforts largely succeeded.
In the United States and Canada, the official holiday for workers is Labor Day in September. A September holiday was first proposed for the United States in the 1880s, before the Haymarket affair. Groups in Canada were already celebrating a Labour Day. In 1887, Oregon was the first state to make it a public holiday. By the time it became a federal holiday in 1894, thirty states officially celebrated Labor Day. After the Haymarket affair, US President Grover Cleveland feared that commemorating Labor Day on May 1 could become an opportunity to commemorate the affair. Thus, in 1887, it was established as an official holiday in September to support the Labor Day.
In 1921, following the Russian Revolution of 1917, May 1 was promoted as "Americanization Day" by the Veterans of Foreign Wars and other groups in opposition to communism. It became an annual event, sometimes featuring large rallies. In 1949, Americanization Day was renamed to Loyalty Day. In 1958, the U.S. Congress declared Loyalty Day, the U.S. recognition of May 1, a national holiday; that same year, U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower proclaimed May 1 Law Day as well.
Unions and union locals in the United States however, have maintained a connection with labor traditions through their own unofficial observances on May 1. Some of the largest examples of this occurred during the Great Depression of the 1930s, when hundreds of thousands of workers marched in May Day parades in New York's Union Square. In 2006, May 1 was chosen by mostly Latino immigrant groups in the United States as the day for the Great American Boycott, a general strike of undocumented immigrant workers and supporters to protest H.R. 4437, immigration reform legislation which they felt was draconian.
On May 1, 2012, tens of thousands marched in the streets of New York and around the US to commemorate May Day as the worker's holiday and to protest the dismal state of the economy, the growing divide between the rich and the poor and the status quo of economic inequality.
Originally, May Day on May 1 is an ancient Northern Hemisphere spring festival and usually a public holiday. It is also a traditional spring holiday in many cultures. May Day is still celebrated in many countries with traditional rites and festivities.
May Day coincides with International Workers' Day, and in many countries that celebrate the latter, it may be referred to as "May Day.
- summarised from Wikipedia
Happy Labour Day / Loyalty Day / May Day!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_Day
May Day - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
en.wikipedia.org
May Day on May 1 is an ancient Northern...
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