Our last May lesson. For millions of people, the first of May isn’t about maypoles at all: it’s International Workers’ Day, a public holiday in Spain and in most of the world. And its story begins with a strike, a bomb and a trial in Chicago.
Learn from Songs · Festivals: May Day · Part 3 of 3 · C1–C2
International Workers’ Day: Stormy May Day
Part 3: the first of May as International Workers’ Day. The fight for the eight-hour day, the Haymarket affair in Chicago in 1886, the red flags and military parades of the 20th century, Saint Joseph the Worker, and why “Mayday” is also a cry for help, with AC/DC. Mixed conditionals (If the strikers hadn’t…, we wouldn’t now…), participle clauses (Having lost the vote, the workers…), and reporting a disputed history (allegedly, ostensibly, it remains disputed whether), with Philo, Sophia, Marcos and Demetria.
SOPHIA
MARCOS
A bomb? On a holiday?
SOPHIA
It’s a story people still argue about, Marcos. And our song is by AC/DC, a hard rock band of working-class Scottish immigrants in Australia, with a title that plays on two meanings of “Mayday”.
PHILO
Two meanings? I know one: help!
Before you listen: the song
Chicago, 1886, and the world
The eight-hour day. In the 19th century many factory workers worked ten to sixteen hours a day, six days a week. The demand “eight hours for work, eight hours for rest, eight hours for what we will” spread across the world. On 1 May 1886, hundreds of thousands of workers in the United States went on strike for it. In Chicago, on 4 May, at a meeting in Haymarket Square, a bomb was thrown at the police; officers and civilians were killed in the bomb blast and the shooting that followed. Eight anarchists were convicted, and four were hanged in 1887. Two views: many historians and, in 1893, the Governor of Illinois himself, who pardoned the survivors, considered the trial unfair, since no evidence linked most of the accused to the bomb; others stress that some of the defendants had openly called for violence. The bomber was never identified.
A world holiday. In 1889 the international socialist movement chose 1 May as a day of demonstrations in memory of Haymarket, and it became Labour Day in most countries. In the Soviet Union and other communist states it was marked with huge military parades, which is why some people associate it with those regimes; for others it simply celebrates the rights that unions won, such as the weekend, holidays and safety at work. In 1955 the Catholic Church made 1 May the feast of Saint Joseph the Worker. The United States, ironically, celebrates its Labor Day in September.
Mayday! The distress call “Mayday” has nothing to do with the date: it was invented in 1923 by a radio officer at Croydon airport in London, from the French (venez) m’aider, “(come and) help me”. Our song: “Stormy May Day” (2000), from the album Stiff Upper Lip, was written by the brothers Angus and Malcolm Young, born in Glasgow, whose family emigrated to Australia in 1963. It is a slow, heavy blues, with Angus playing slide guitar.
Rights that seem normal today were once fought for, sometimes at great cost.
Listen: a storm on May Day
PHILO
Listen to AC/DC. What is the mood of the song? How is it different from the Bee Gees and Men Without Hats? What could “stormy May Day” mean?
SOPHIA
Then answer Section A.
✊ Listen to the song: “Stormy May Day” (Angus Young and Malcolm Young, 2000), by AC/DC.Listen to the official recording →
📜 Read the words while you listen: “Stormy May Day”, AC/DC.Read the lyrics →
Mixed conditionals
MARCOS
If workers hadn’t gone on strike, we might not have a weekend today. If the bomber had been identified, the trial would be less controversial now.
SOPHIA
If + past perfect, would / might + verb = a past cause with a present result. Or the other way: If I were braver, I would have spoken. Essential for arguing about history.
Participle clauses
DEMETRIA
Having worked twelve hours, the men were exhausted. Convicted on weak evidence, four men were hanged. Hoping for change, they marched.
SOPHIA
Having + past participle (one action before another), past participle (passive meaning), -ing (at the same time). The subject must be the same in both parts!
Reporting a disputed history
PHILO
The bomb was allegedly thrown by an anarchist. The trial was ostensibly about the bomb, but in reality about their ideas. It remains disputed whether any of them was guilty. Critics contend that…
SOPHIA
allegedly (claimed, not proved), ostensibly (apparently, but not really), it remains disputed / unclear whether, critics contend / supporters maintain. These protect you from stating as fact what is still argued.
Sophia’s comparison: the Sabbath, and the first strikes
PHILO
The Torah says: the seventh day is a Sabbath, in it you shall not do any work, nor your servant, nor your maid, “that they may rest as well as you.” And you must pay the worker his wages on the same day, before the sun goes down. Rest and fair pay are very old commandments.
SOPHIA
And the Romans tell how, long ago, the common people, tired of debts and injustice, simply walked out of Rome to a hill outside the city and refused to work or fight until the nobles gave them their own representatives. Some call it the first strike in history, but it was not. More than a thousand years ago, here in Egypt, the craftsmen who carved the tombs of the pharaohs at Deir el-Medina were paid in grain, and when their rations were late, they put down their tools and sat down outside the temples, saying: “We are hungry.” The scribes wrote it down, in the reign of Ramesses III. That is the oldest strike we know of.
Sophia’s summary
| Words and forms | Use | Example |
|---|---|---|
| If + past perfect, would / might + verb | mixed conditional: past cause, present result | If they hadn’t struck, we might not have a weekend. |
| Having + past participle / past participle / -ing | participle clauses | Having worked all day, they marched. |
| allegedly / ostensibly | claimed / apparently | allegedly thrown by an anarchist |
| it remains disputed whether | careful reporting | It remains disputed whether they were guilty. |
| Mayday ← m’aider | etymology | a call for help |
Practice
Listen to the song for Section A, then do the rest. Press “Check my answers” at the end. You can try again as many times as you like.
A · Listen: the song
Listen to the song and choose the best answer.
1. What did workers strike for on 1 May 1886?
2. What happened in Haymarket Square on 4 May?
3. Who pardoned the surviving defendants in 1893?
4. What is 1 May in the Catholic calendar since 1955?
5. Where does the distress call “Mayday” come from?
6. Where were Angus and Malcolm Young born?
B · Grammar and vocabulary
Write the missing word or words.
7. If workers hadn’t gone on strike, we might not a weekend today.
8. worked twelve hours, the men were exhausted.
9. on weak evidence, four men were hanged. (convict)
10. The bomb was thrown by an anarchist. (claimed, not proved)
11. It remains disputed any of them was guilty.
12. The trial was about the bomb, but really about their ideas. (apparently)
C · Right or wrong?
Is the sentence correct English?
13. “If they hadn’t struck, we wouldn’t have weekends now.”
14. “Having worked all day, the factory closed.”
15. “It remains disputed whether the trial was fair.”
16. “If the bomber was identified in 1886, the trial would be different.”
Talk and write
Discussion and writing
Timeline debate. In groups, build a timeline from 1886 to today. Then debate: “The first of May belongs to the workers, not to any political party.” Use mixed conditionals and careful reporting.
Discuss. 1. Which rights at work do we take for granted today? 2. Was the Haymarket trial just? What evidence would you need to decide? 3. Should a public holiday be political?
Write (240–280 words, C2 essay). “Without the labour movement, modern working life would be unrecognisable.” Discuss, using mixed conditionals, participle clauses and the language of disputed history.
Now play the gamebook: the papyrus workers of Alexandria, a twelve-hour day, and a strike on the first day of spring.Play the gamebook →