May Day – The Importance of this month and days world Wide
“So whats so special about the month MAY, and the known phrase called ‘May Day’ ?. Around the world may month has some significance in varieties of ways like mothers day, astrology signs etc..”
Mother’s Day : was celebrated on the second Sunday of May. May is traditionally a woman’s month; named as it is after a Greek goddess of fertility, Maia who was identified with the Roman Goddess of fertility, Bona dea, whose festival fell in the month of May!
May is also mother’s month in other ways: Vacations ensure mothers end up being more of mother, what with the children at home! The earliest May Day celebrations appeared in pre-Christian Europe, as in the Celtic celebration of Beltane, and the Walpurgis Night of the Germanic countries. Although the pagan oriented celebrations faded as Europe became Christianize, a more secular versions of the holiday continued to be observed in the school and churches of Europe well into the 20th century.
Astrology : May begins, historically with the sun in the sign of Taurus and ends in the sign of Gemini. Astronomically speaking, the sun begins in the constellation od Aries and ends in the constellation of Taurus.
Festival Day : In this form, May Day may be best known for its tradition of dancing the Maypole and crowning of the Queen of the May. May Day has been a traditional day of festivities throughout the centuries. It is most associated with towns and villages celebrating springtime fertility and reverly with fetes and community gatherings.
May and Japan : Starting earlier than the rest of the world, (is it because the sun rises earlier there, as compared to the rest of the world? ), Japanese schools as well as the fiscal year start on April 1, So May in Japan is also the month for the so called May sickness. That is because workers and school children and teachers begin by now to be tried of working so hard!
Tamilnadu India : Perhaps the most significant is the dancing around the May people that has been festooned wit ribbions. Strangely enough, villages in Tamilnadu have a similar indigenous folk dance where long ribbons are tied to a pole and knit by the dancers who dance holding a ribbon each!
A very romantic tradition that flourished till the late 20th century is the giving of ‘May baskets‘, small baskets of candy and/or flowers, usually left anonymously on neighbors doorsteps.
Social Reference : May Day also refers to various socialist and labour movement celebrations conducted on May 1, to commemorate the Haymarket martys of 1886. May Day in this regard is called International Worker’s Day or Labour Day, and is a commemoration of the execution of the Haymarket martyrs who were arrested after the Haymarket Riot of 1886 in Chicago, Illinois, which occurred on May 4 but was the culmination of labour unrest that had begun on May 1. Consequently this May Day became established as an anarchist and socialist holiday, and in this form, May Day has become an international celebration of the social and economic achievements of the working class and labour movement. It is somewhat ironic that the country in which it is least recognized; in the United States, May Day is officially observed as Loyalty Day.
Emergency Code ‘ MayDay’ : Mayday is an emergency code word used internationally as a distress signal in voice procedure radio communications, derived from the French m’aider, meaning ‘help me’. It is used to signal a life-threatening emergency by many group, such as police forces, pilots, the fire brigade, and transportation organizations. The call is always given three times in a row to prevent mistaking it for some similar sounding phrase under noisy conditions,and to distinguish an actual mayday call from a message about a mayday call.
National Holiday : May Day is a nationwide bank holiday in India. The holiday is tied to labour movements for communist and socialist political parties. In Maharashtra and Gujarat, respectively, it is officially called Maharashtra Day and Gujarat Dat, since it was on this day in 1960 that each attained statehood, after the division of the old Bombay State on linguistic lines.
Also, May 1, 1707 was the day the Act of Union came into effect, joining England and Scotland to form the Kingdom of Great Britain.
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