DHAKA: BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia will address workers rally on the occasion of May Day at Suhrawardy Udyan in the capital on Thursday.

Bangladesh, along with rest of the world, is also set to recall the history of great May Day. 

The day is a public holyday. 

International Workers' Day is the commemoration of the May 1, 1886 Haymarket affair in Chicago. The police were trying to disperse a public assembly during a general strike for the eight-hour workday, when an unidentified person threw a bomb at the police. 

The police responded by firing on the workers, killing four demonstrators. Reliable witnesses testified that all the pistol flashes came from the center of the street, where the police were standing, and none from the crowd. 

Moreover, initial newspaper reports made no mention of firing by civilians. A telegraph pole at the scene was filled with bullet holes, all coming from the direction of the police.

In 1889, the first congress of the Second International, meeting in Paris for the centennial of the French Revolution and the Exposition Universelle, following a proposal by Raymond Lavigne, called for international demonstrations on the 1890 anniversary of the Chicago protests. 

The May Day was formally recognized as an annual event at the International’s second congress in 1891.

BDST: 1641 HRS, APR 28, 2014