May Day / Mayday

Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!   Mayday is the emergency code word used internationally as a distress signal in radio communications. It derives from the French term, m'aider, meaning 'come help me'. It is used to signal a life-threatening emergency by many groups, such as aircraft pilots or policemen.  A Mayday 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.  The use of the term originated sometime between the years of 1925-1930. 

May Day occurs on May 1  each calendar year and refers to several public holidays.      Recognized in many countries, May Day is one and the same as International Workers' Day, or Labor Day, a day for political demonstrations and celebrations planned by various groups or individuals.  Organized labor celebrations, conducted on May first honors the often difficult fights of previous years for establishing the length (eight hour) of the work day; such celebrations are commonplace through-out modern working societies.

The concept for a "workers holiday" began in Australia in 1856; but the tribute of May Day as an International Workers' Day received its inspiration from the United States, (the U.S. Congress designated May 1 as Loyalty Day in 1958) due to the day's perceived misuse by the Soviet Union.  After all, during the cold war era, who can forget those long military parades, known as The May Day Parade in the former U.S.S.R. which gave it (the U.S.S.R) a chance to show its citizens, and the world for that matter, its military strength?              

Pagan Rituals are generally believed to be, in the historical sense at least, responsible for many modern holidays, including May Day.   It is by and large believed that the Celtic festival of Beltane and the Germanic festival of Walpurgis Night, each of which  were pagan festivals.   Both of these festivals were traditionally occasions that were popular and often rough celebrations that that ended up as being sources  for many of the current May Day festivals.


Sources ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walpurgis_Night ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beltane

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loyalty_Day

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_1

http://www.babylon.com/definition/distress%20signal/English?uil=English&uris=%21%21ARV6FUJ2JP&tid=Definition