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Explore 1 May

Explore 1 May: England and Scotland become the Kingdom of Great Britain, American workers strike for an eight-hour day, the Empire State Building opens in New York, and a U-2 spy plane is shot down over the Soviet Union. Meet Santiago Ramón y Cajal, Manna Dey and the Duke of Wellington, born on this date, and remember Antonín Dvořák.

This day through time →13 verified events across 5 eras

⌛13Full
Timeline ◈4Historic
Moments ♙8Born
Today ✦5Lives
Remembered ◉1Firsts &
Discoveries ☆1Sporting
Moments ♫1Culture
Stories ☉1Observances
Queen Anne, in whose reign the Union came into force, painted by Michael Dahl.
Queen Anne, in whose reign the Union came into force, painted by Michael Dahl.
Image creditMichael Dahl · Public domainResized and cropped for display.
1707

England and Scotland become the Kingdom of Great Britain

On 1 May 1707 the Acts of Union passed by the parliaments of England and Scotland came into force, joining the two kingdoms into a single state called Great Britain. The two countries had shared a monarch since 1603, but until now each had kept its own parliament.

From this day there was one Parliament of Great Britain at Westminster, one flag, one currency and a shared market for trade at home and in the colonies. Scotland kept its own legal system and its own Presbyterian church, arrangements that still set it apart today.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: UK Parliament: Act of Union 1707 ↗
Banners calling for 8 hours' work, 8 hours' free time and 8 hours' rest at a Danish trade union demonstration in 1912.
Banners calling for 8 hours’ work, 8 hours’ free time and 8 hours’ rest at a Danish trade union demonstration in 1912.
Image creditUnknown author · Public domainResized and cropped for display.
1886

American workers down tools for an eight-hour day

On 1 May 1886 hundreds of thousands of workers across the United States went on strike or marched to demand a working day of eight hours. Chicago was the centre of the movement, and tens of thousands of the city’s workers walked out, bringing much of its industry to a halt.

The protest turned to bloodshed days later, when police fired on strikers and a bomb exploded at a rally in Haymarket Square. In 1889 an international congress of socialist and labour parties in Paris chose 1 May for demonstrations for the eight-hour day, and May Day became a workers’ holiday around the world.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: Encyclopedia of Chicago: Strikes (Chicago History Museum / Newberry Library) ↗
The Empire State Building rising above Midtown Manhattan.
The Empire State Building rising above Midtown Manhattan.
Image creditSam Valadi · Public domainResized and cropped for display.
1931

The Empire State Building opens in New York

On 1 May 1931 the Empire State Building was formally opened in Manhattan, little more than a year after construction began. President Herbert Hoover pressed a button in Washington as the signal for the building’s lights to come on, although the switch itself was thrown in New York.

At 102 storeys it was the tallest building in the world, a title it held for nearly 40 years. It opened in the depths of the Great Depression, and so much of its office space stood empty that New Yorkers nicknamed it the ‘Empty State Building’.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: Empire State Building: History ↗
Wreckage of Powers's U-2 on display at a military museum in Moscow.
Wreckage of Powers’s U-2 on display at a military museum in Moscow.
Image creditAlan Wilson from Stilton, Peterborough, Cambs, UK · CC BY-SA 2.0Resized and cropped for display.
1960

A U-2 spy plane is shot down over the Soviet Union

On 1 May 1960 an American U-2 reconnaissance aircraft flown by the CIA pilot Francis Gary Powers was brought down by a Soviet missile near Sverdlovsk in the Ural Mountains. Powers had set out from Pakistan to photograph military sites on a flight that was meant to end in Norway, and he survived by parachute and was captured.

Washington at first claimed a weather plane had strayed off course, until Moscow revealed that it held the pilot and the wreckage. The affair wrecked a summit of the great powers in Paris that month, and Powers spent almost two years in Soviet custody before being exchanged for a Soviet spy in 1962.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: US Department of State, Office of the Historian: U-2 Overflights and the Capture of Francis Gary Powers ↗
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PEOPLE

Born Today

Rudolf I of Germany
Image creditWolfgang Sauber · Public domainResized and cropped for display.
Born 1218

Rudolf I of Germany

The first Habsburg to become king of Germany, beginning his family’s long rise to power.

Joseph Addison
Image creditAfter Godfrey Kneller · Public domainResized and cropped for display.
Born 1672

Joseph Addison

English essayist who co-founded The Spectator and shaped the modern magazine essay.

Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington
Image creditThomas Lawrence · Public domainResized and cropped for display.
Born 1769

Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington

British commander who defeated Napoleon at Waterloo and later served as prime minister.

Balraj Sahni
Image creditUnknown author · Public domainResized and cropped for display.
Born 1913

Balraj Sahni

Indian actor celebrated for his realistic roles in Hindi films such as Do Bigha Zameen.

Judy Collins
Image creditRaph_PH · CC BY 2.0Resized and cropped for display.
Born 1939

Judy Collins

American folk singer known for her versions of Both Sides Now and Send in the Clowns.

Wes Anderson
Image creditHarald Krichel · CC BY-SA 4.0Resized and cropped for display.
Born 1969

Wes Anderson

American film-maker known for the carefully composed worlds of films such as The Grand Budapest Hotel.

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IDEAS THAT CHANGED THINGS

Firsts, Science & Discoveries

The title page of the first volume of Species Plantarum, Stockholm, 1753.
The title page of the first volume of Species Plantarum, Stockholm, 1753.
Image creditCarl Linnaeus · Public domainResized and cropped for display.
1753

Linnaeus’s Species Plantarum sets the start date for plant names

In 1753 the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus published Species Plantarum in Stockholm, describing some 6,000 kinds of plant. It was the first work to give every species a consistent two-part name, a genus and a single epithet, such as Bellis perennis for the daisy.

Botanists later adopted the book as the official starting point for plant names. Under the international code of botanical nomenclature its two volumes, which appeared in May and August, are treated as published together on 1 May 1753, and no earlier name for a flowering plant or fern counts.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants, Article 13 (IAPT) ↗
☆
SPORTING HISTORY

Sporting Moments

Braves Field in Boston, where the game was played, on a later postcard showing a night game.
Braves Field in Boston, where the game was played, on a later postcard showing a night game.
Image creditUnknown author · CC BY 2.0Resized and cropped for display.
1920

Baseball’s longest game ends in a draw after 26 innings

On 1 May 1920 the Boston Braves and the Brooklyn Robins played 26 innings at Braves Field in Boston, the most ever in a major league game. Both starting pitchers, Joe Oeschger for Boston and Leon Cadore for Brooklyn, stayed on the mound for the whole match.

After both sides scored once early on, neither managed another run for 20 innings. With darkness falling the umpire called the game off at 1-1, after three hours and 50 minutes of play.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: Society for American Baseball Research: May 1, 1920, Braves and Dodgers play 26 innings to no decision ↗
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MUSIC • FILM • BOOKS • CULTURE

Culture Stories

The Crystal Palace in Hyde Park, from Dickinson's pictures of the Great Exhibition of 1851.
The Crystal Palace in Hyde Park, from Dickinson’s pictures of the Great Exhibition of 1851.
Image creditDickinson Brothers · Public domainResized and cropped for display.
1851

Queen Victoria opens the Great Exhibition

On 1 May 1851 Queen Victoria opened the Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations in Hyde Park, London. It was housed in the Crystal Palace, a vast building of iron and glass designed by Joseph Paxton and put up in a matter of months.

Prince Albert had championed the show, which brought together machinery, manufactures and crafts from Britain and around the world. About six million visits were made before it closed in October, and its profits helped to found the museums of South Kensington, among them the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Science Museum.

Read the full storyHistory & Timeline →Source: Royal Collection Trust: The Great Exhibition of 1851 ↗
✦
LIVES REMEMBERED

Remembered Today

Isabella of Portugal
Image creditTitian · Public domainResized and cropped for display.
Died 1539

Isabella of Portugal

Empress and wife of Charles V, who governed Spain during his long absences.

John Dryden
Image creditGodfrey Kneller · Public domainResized and cropped for display.
Died 1700

John Dryden

England’s first Poet Laureate and the leading writer of the Restoration.

Antonín Dvořák
Image creditUnknown author · Public domainResized and cropped for display.
Died 1904

Antonín Dvořák

Czech composer of the New World Symphony, steeped in the folk music of Bohemia and Moravia.

Aram Khachaturian
Image creditMieremet, Rob / Anefo · CC BY-SA 3.0 nlResized and cropped for display.
Died 1978

Aram Khachaturian

Armenian composer whose ballets Spartacus and Gayane include the famous Sabre Dance.

Olympia Dukakis
Image creditMontclair Film · CC BY 2.0Resized and cropped for display.
Died 2021

Olympia Dukakis

American actress who won an Oscar for the film Moonstruck.

☉
AROUND THE WORLD

Observances & Anniversaries

A May Day rally in Vienna in 2013.
A May Day rally in Vienna in 2013.
Image creditSPÖ Presse und Kommunikation · CC BY-SA 2.0Resized and cropped for display.
Annual

International Workers’ Day (May Day)

Across much of the world 1 May is a public holiday for workers, marked with marches and rallies. The date was chosen by an international socialist congress in Paris in 1889 in memory of the American strikes of 1 May 1886 for an eight-hour day, and demonstrations were first held on it in 1890.

Source: Britannica: May Day ↗
HISTORY & TIMELINE

Finished the highlights?

Follow 1 May chronologically, from the Middle Ages to the modern day, with 13 verified events and the sources behind them.

This day through time →
Sources & further reading