On This Day: May 1

On This Day, for May 1st, by Britannica.
Today we’re talking about:
taking an airliner with a gun
taking back an archipelago with a bomb
an international call for help
and a note of justice… a long, long time coming
First, a word about May 1st itself…
In Europe, May 1st was a traditional holiday celebrating the return of spring. The day came with customs. People decorated a maypole and danced around it. Sometimes a May king or queen would be crowned with garlands of flowers. The holiday has roots in Roman and Greek customs, where festivals celebrated spring to ensure fertility. But with the Puritans’ early settlement in America, the customs weren’t so popular in the United States, at least not among English descendants.

May 1 has a different significance today. That’s because in 1889, May 1 was designated as a labor holiday by the International Socialist Congress. This set the tone for political actions for years to come. For example, through much of the 20th century, the Soviet Union—that is, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics—held great parades in Red Square, Moscow. The annual celebration of labor was the premise for the parades, but they were demonstrations of Soviet political and military power.

The significance of May 1 took another turn in the West, particularly in the U.S., when the Occupy movement held marches and rallies across the country on this day in 2012. The movement had grown out of demonstrations to “occupy Wall Street” to protest the growing disparity of incomes in the United States, and protesters literally camped out on Wall Street, in the heart of New York City’s financial district, in September 2011. Their camps were cleared, but their sentiments aren’t gone, though the Occupy movement has dissipated since then.

May 1st isn’t a holiday in the customary sense. But because of its history, it means different things to different people. You can read more about it at Britannica.com.
I’ll be back with more On This Day, after these words.

This is On This Day for May 1st. I’m Kurt Heintz.

[pilot voice, as heard on a radio]

Mayday! Mayday! Airline 432. Declaring an emergency. Lost power, both engines. Need an immediate airspace and course to the nearest runway. Mayday! Mayday! Airline 432. Over.
[announcer]
How many times have you heard the saying “Mayday!” for “Help!”? It is well known among flyers and sailors. It was established about 100 years ago as the international call of distress. But it has nothing to do with the first of May. Instead, “Mayday” was derived from the French phrase “m'aider!”, which means literally “help me!” Despite the inexact translation, the meaning holds up.

Here are some fast facts for May 1.

The movie Citizen Kane premiered on this day in 1941. Directed by Orson Welles, who played the title role, Citizen Kane is regarded by many critics as the finest film ever made.

In 1960 an American U-2 spy plane was shot down over the Soviet Union. The pilot, Francis Gary Powers, survived. He and wreckage of the plane were presented in Soviet media, at great embarrassment to U.S. leaders. The event heightened the Cold War tensions of the time.

The first major airplane hijacking in the U.S. took place on this day in 1961, when a flight from Miami, Florida, bound for Key West, Florida, was forced to fly to Havana, Cuba. Despite this and similar hijackings afterward, security measures at airports did not change significantly for a few years.

In 1982 the British attacked Argentine forces occupying the Falkland Islands—or, as the Argentines called them, las Islas Malvinas—after Argentina’s April 2 invasion of the islands started the Falklands War.

May 1 is the anniversary of two world’s fair opening days: for the 2010 world’s fair in Shanghai, one of the largest ever, and for the 1982 World’s Fair in Knoxville, Tennessee, one of the smallest.

Our final story today is odd, because it could be filed under “better late than never” as well as “justice deferred is justice denied.”

It begins as people gather for Sunday service at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. Shortly before the service starts, a bomb explodes on the side of the church. Four girls are killed: Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley, and Carole Robertson, all age 14, and Denise McNair, age 11. All are African American. Violence erupts across Birmingham after the bombing. Two more young African Americans die, and the National Guard is called in to restore order. The FBI determines that the bomb was set by members of Birmingham’s Ku Klux Klan.

Although this story began on a different day—September 15, 1963—it was on this day, in 2001, that justice was served to only the second of the four suspects. Thomas Blanton was convicted in the murder of the four girls. One suspect, an accomplice, had been convicted years before Blanton, in 1977. Another would be convicted a year after Blanton. The remaining suspect died in 1994, before he could ever face trial. Blanton sought parole in his late 80s, but he was denied.

Thanks for listening today. We have lots more on these stories at Britannica.com. Give it a look. And we have more audio programs, too. See our audio and podcast collections.

For Britannica, I’m Kurt Heintz.

This program is copyrighted by Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc. All rights reserved.