ABOUT MAY 1


When you talk about May 1, you often think about the International Workers’ Day. I will come back to that.
This day and the days around it has always in most countries been used to celebrate the arrival of spring and all its flowers – if you are on the Northern hemisphere.  The Romans organised during the days from April 27 to May 3 the so-called FLORALIA festival.  It was to honour Flora, the goddess for flowers.  It was later developed into many different forms in most countries in Europe. You were dancing, singing, eating cakes – and did other entertaining and pleasant things.  It was a real day of feast in most cultures.
This article in Wikipedia tells much more country by country:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_Day  
The workers all over the world later made this day their International Workers’ Day to fight for their political goals and rights it started back in 1856 in Australia.  It was in the beginning on April 21.  The next country to follow this tradition was the workers in the USA from 1886 and onwards.  They chose May 1,  took off from work and made big demonstrations.  Three years later, in 1889, the Second Socialist International was founded in Paris. And one of its decisions was to make May 1 the International Workers’ Day.  It has been like that ever since – except during the two world wars.   
They were in the beginning all fighting for a 8 hours working day and for equal pay for men and women.  As these and other goals were implemented step by step the new goals have been in the forefront. 
When Denmark is concerned the first May 1 demonstrations took place in 1890.  And some of their main goals have been fulfilled step by step later on – such as:  1919: 8 hours work day.  1938: law about paid holidays. 1974: 5 days’ work week.



PS: When you at sea call MAYDAY it has nothing to do with May 1.  It comes from French M’AIDER  -  and is the international emergency call from ships in great danger.  It is equivalent to SOS.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

EU's RELATIONS WITH THE WORLD

Yesterday you got my overview of the Brexit situation.   Some people think that the EU after the UK left as a member does not mean very much, does not have much influence – and should instead start a new strategy with cooperation with countries around the world, incl. the Commonwealth. To those people I want to say:   Either this assertation is put forward to stimulate the discussion for the sake of the discussion.   Or it is an effort to start a discussion far away from the realities ☹ This inspires me to make a brief overview of the role of the EU in the world. Today I will do it point by point.   Later I will go into more details on some of the points: 1.       EU is with its 466 mio. inhabitants one of the most interesting markets in the world. This was also what the Brits were told by f.ex. Australia and India, when they tried to make these countries particularly interested in their market with 66 mio. people. 2...
Read more

MY FIRST SCHOOL DAY - April 2, 1952

Image
MY VERY FIRST SCHOOL DAY -  April 2, 1952: Today ( April 2, 2021 )   it is exactly 69 – sixtynine – years ago, since I started going to school. This is a long time ago. It was in 1952. But I still remember it, as if it were yesterday. Can you understand that ? It was a wonderful, sunny morning.   I had for such a long time been looking forward to going to school.   Ok, I could already read and I could also write reasonably.   But I wanted to learn much more. And quickly! I knew that we were 4 kids in our village, who should start that day. Two girls and two boys. I knew the other three well. Remember, we lived in a small country village, where everybody knew everybody. The first school day was always sort of a party to us.   Our parents came along to the school on that first day. And we all had put our nicest clothes on, of course. Our farm was about 1 ½ km from the school.   We walked there, my parents and I.   On the way I could...
Read more

MAY 9 - EUROPE DAY

MAY 9: This day is EUROPE DAY.   The day, when the French foreign minister Robert Schuman on behalf of his government presented the so-called Schuman Plan.   Its essence was that European countries should start a very close cooperation with strong commitments, so that war between them would be impossible in the future.   How could you make war impossible? The participating countries had to give up their sovereignty over their coal and steel production and together create joint institutions, which would be responsible for the management of coal and steel in the future.   And as coal and steel are both essentials in any war, this would make war between the countries impossible. The man behind the plan was the French official, Jean Monnet. Six countries supported the proposal right away:   France, West Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg.    And the new European institution, called the European Coal and Steel Communit...
Read more