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You Won’t Believe Where May Day Actually Started

Mindfulfab
2 min readMay 1, 2024

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Photo by Moises Gonzalez on Unsplash

May Day is here, and everywhere you look there are parades, protests, and people waving red flags. But have you ever stopped to wonder where this whole tradition even started?

It turns out, May Day’s origins are a bit more surprising than you might think. We all kind of assume it’s a communist holiday, right? Well, it actually got its kickstart in the United States of America!

Back in 1886, American workers were fighting for an eight-hour workday. Sounds pretty reasonable, right? Well, things got heated, and a clash between workers and police turned violent. This event, known as the Haymarket Affair, became a turning point. A few years later, in 1889, an international labor group decided to honor those workers by making May 1st a day of solidarity for workers everywhere.

So, why is it such a big deal in communist countries? Well, communist ideology puts a lot of emphasis on worker rights, so May Day became a natural fit for them. But it’s important to remember that May Day is about way more than just communism. It’s a day to celebrate workers and the fight for fair treatment everywhere in the world.

So next time you see a May Day celebration, take a moment to remember its surprising origins and the enduring fight for worker rights!

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Mindfulfab
Mindfulfab

Written by Mindfulfab

Mindfulness and creative thinking

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