May 1 is May Day
Loyalty Day
(The Official Site of the Mother Goose Society) tells how to celebrate Mother Goose Day
Law Day, sponsored by the American Bar Association
Lei Day, a Hawaiin flower festival. Lei Day is a statewide celebration in Hawaii. The celebration begins in the morning of May first every year and continues into the next day. Lei day was established as a holiday in 1929. Each Hawaiian island has a different type of lei for its people to wear in the celebration.
Beltane (a Gaelic May Day festival)
International Tuba Day
Space Day
National Chocolate Parfait Day
First day of the Month of Mary which includes special devotions to the Blessed Virgin throughout the Roman Catholic world.
Labour Day or International Workers’ Day is a public holiday in 66 nations of the world. Also called May Day, Eight Hours Day, International Day of Solidarity of the Working People, or Saint Joseph the Worker Day.
Wars of Scottish Independence end: By the Treaty of Edinburgh-Northampton the Kingdom of England recognized the Kingdom of Scotland as an independent state on the first of May, 1328.
1840 – The Penny Black, the first official adhesive postage stamp, was issued in the United Kingdom.
1883 – William Frederick “Buffalo Bill” Cody” put on his first Wild West Show
Coxey’s Army, the first significant American protest march, arrived in Washington, D.C. on May 1, 1894. It was led by Jacob Coxey, an Ohio businessman. Coxey’s Army was a group of unemployed workers who marched on Washington D.C. in 1894, the second year of a four-year economic depression that was the worst in United States history to that time. According to Wikipedia:
Among the people observing the march was L. Frank Baum, before he gained fame. There are political interpretations of his book, the Wonderful Wizard of Oz, which have often been related to Coxey’s Army. In the novel, Dorothy, the Scarecrow (the American farmer), Tin Woodman (the industrial worker), and Cowardly Lion (William Jennings Bryan), march on the yellow brick road to the Emerald City, the Capital (or Washington, D.C.), demanding relief from the Wizard, who is interpreted to be the President. Dorothy’s shoes (made of silver in the book, not the familiar ruby that is depicted in the movie) are interpreted to symbolize using free silver instead of the gold standard (the road of yellow brick) because the shortage of gold precipitated the Panic of 1893.
1898 – George Dewey commanded, “You may fire when you are ready, Gridley.” Within six hours, on May 1, he had sunk or captured the entire Spanish Pacific fleet under Admiral Patricio Montojo y Pasarón and silenced the shore batteries at Manila, with the loss of only one life on the American side.
1915 – The RMS Lusitania departed from New York City on her two hundred and second, and final, crossing of the North Atlantic. Six days later, the ship was torpedoed off the coast of Ireland with the loss of 1,198 lives, including 128 Americans, rousing American sentiment against Germany.
In 1956, the polio vaccine developed by Jonas Salk was made available to the public.
Cold War: U-2 incident – Francis Gary Powers, in a Lockheed U-2 spyplane, was shot down over the Soviet Union, sparking a diplomatic crisis in 1960.
The Prime Minister of Cuba, Fidel Castro, proclaimed Cuba a socialist nation and abolished elections in 1961.
1983 – Nolan Ryan surpassed Walter Johnson for most strikeouts (3,508)
Disney-MGM Studios opened at Walt Disney World near Orlando, Florida on May 1, 1989.
In 2004, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia joined the European Union, celebrated at the residence of the Irish President in Dublin.