*** May Day! ***
The first day of May is May Day. A celebration of spring.
But Mayday! Mayday! Mayday! when said three times is also a distress call.
Mayday got its start as an international distress call in 1923. The distress call was first recognized in 1924 by the Book of Wireless Telegraphy and later it was made official by the 1927 International Radiotelegraph Convention.
Editor Note: There are frequent mentions of Mayday being made official in 1948. However the citations do not identify the approving authority.
Mayday was the idea of Frederick Mockford, who was a senior radio officer at Croydon Airport in London. He was charged with finding a suitable voice-based distress call to be used in place of the telegraphy signal SOS. Mockford came up with the idea for “mayday” because it sounded like the French word m’aider, which means “help me.”
See ‘ya down the log!
Frank KB3PQT
From https://www.wonderopolis.org/wonder/what-does-mayday-mean
(Your Editor remembers a tradition of hanging May Day baskets, as a child, on the door knobs of neighboring friends, knocking or ringing the bell, and running away as fast as possible to avoid being caught in the act.)