May Day is perhaps globally the most important day in what I will call the Secular Religious calendar Since many nations celebrate different New Years, it may well be the most Internationale [yes]. It is nominally related historically the Haymarket Riot, but those events happened on May 4th. The demands happened on May 1st, but the riots on May 4th.
Why May 1st? As Wikipedia notes, May 1st and the night before are pagan holidays of seemingly long standing that seem merely to have been coopted by Christians, as indeed happened with most Christian holidays:
Regional varieties [Of May Day and related traditions include Walpurgis Night in central and northern Europe,[1] the Gaelic festival Beltane,[4] the Welsh festival Calan Mai,[4] and May devotions to the Blessed Virgin Mary. It has also been associated with the ancient Roman festival Floralia.[5]
In 1889, it was chosen as the date for International Workers’ Day by the Second International, to commemorate the Haymarket affair in Chicago and the struggle for an eight-hour working day.[6] As a result, International Workers’ Day is also called “May Day”, but the two are unrelated.
It says they are unrelated, but I wonder. May 4th would have been the more obvious day.
And the Church of Satan also chose Walpurgisnacht, as I will call it in the German, for one of their own holidays. Since those sorts of things traditionally start at midnight, that makes the actual holiday May 1st.
From Wikipedia:
The Church of Satan was founded on Sankt Walpurgisnacht in 1966.[37][38] Founder Anton Szandor LaVey states in The Satanic Bible that besides one’s own birthday, Walpurgisnacht ranks as an important Satanic holiday, noting the Eve of May has been memorialized as “symbolizing the fruition of the spring equinox”,[39] and chose the date well aware of the date’s traditional association with witchcraft. [40]
Additionally, The Satanic Temple celebrates Hexennacht as “a solemn holiday to honor those who were victimized by superstition”