Taking off Travel blog

It’s almost May, which means summer is around the corner! But before we get there, we have plenty of occasions to celebrate in May.

Cinco de Mayo

Coming up first is Cinco de Mayo, originally a Mexican holiday and now celebrated in many parts of the US. We’ll be covering the holiday in more detail next week.

Mother’s Day

People have already celebrated Mother’s Day 2012 in the UK but now it’s our turn to make much of our moms and splash out on flowers, chocolate and celebrations. Sorry, dads, you’ll have to wait another month for your turn.

Memorial Day

Memorial Day on May 28th is the day to honor the war dead at Arlington National Cemetery and across the country. Here’s how we marked the day last year. You can also honor the armed forces on Armed Forces Day on May 19th and the merchant navy on National Maritime Day on May 22nd.

Other May Observances

May is also to month to honor teachers and nurses. National Teacher Day is on May 8th while International Nurses Day is on Florence Nightingale’s birthday, May 12th. Other May observances include:

• National Loyalty Day, a day to reaffirm loyalty to the US
• National Transportation Week, the week including the third Friday in May.

There are also some May observances on the lighter side – will you be celebrating? These include:

• Mother Goose Day: 1st
• National Two Different Colored Shoes Day: 3rd
• Intergalactic Star Wars Day: 4th (May the Fourth Be With You!)
• No Pants Day: (First Friday)
• Free Comic Book Day: 5th
• World Laughter Day: first Sunday
• National Chicken Dance Day: 14th
• National Wig Out Day: (the Friday before Memorial Day)

Finally, here are some significant events that happened in May:

• Alan B Shepard became America’s first man to travel in space on May 5, 1961
• Nelson Mandela was chosen as South Africa’s president on May 9, 1994
• Charles Lindbergh finished the first solo transatlantic flight on May 21, 1927
• Edmund Hillary and Tensing Norgay reached the top of Mount Everest on May 29, 1953

Image: Dave Irving/Flickr

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Tags: cinco de mayo, may 2012 holidays, may 2012 observances, may holidays, may observances, memorial day, mothers day

This entry was posted on Friday, April 27th, 2012 at 7:55 am and is filed under Travel Fun, US holidays and observances. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.