How many days and weeks until May 3rd?

The General Strike began at midnight on May 3rd 1926, called by the TUC in support of the miners, whose employers had demanded longer hours for less money. Railwaymen, dockers, printers and bus crews came out, well over a million people in all. With the newspapers stopped, the government produced its own, the British Gazette, edited with obvious enjoyment by Winston Churchill. The strike collapsed after nine days. The miners stayed out until November.

On May 3rd 1951 George VI opened the Festival of Britain from the steps of St Paul’s. It was conceived by Attlee’s government as a tonic for the nation, and built on twenty-seven acres of bombed ground on the South Bank. Eight and a half million people visited. The Royal Festival Hall survives; the Skylon was taken down and sold for scrap.

On May 3rd 1979 the Conservatives won the general election and Margaret Thatcher became the first woman to lead a British government, taking office the following day. On May 3rd 1810 Byron swam the Hellespont in imitation of Leander, and was prouder of that than of most things he wrote.

It is a curiously musical date. Bing Crosby, the crooner whose easy baritone shaped popular singing for decades, was born on May 3rd 1903; the folk singer and activist Pete Seeger followed in 1919, and James Brown, the godfather of soul, in 1933 — three men who between them account for a great deal of the last century’s recorded output. It is also the birthday of Niccolo Machiavelli, the Florentine political thinker best remembered for The Prince.

Born on May 3rd: star sign, birthstone and birth flower

Bing Crosby and James Brown — both named above — share this star sign with everyone else born in the same window.

None of this is settled fact in the way the history above is — zodiac dates, birthstones and birth flowers are conventions rather than laws, and different sources hedge them slightly differently. The birthstone is the most standardised of the three (set by the trade in 1912 and revised since); the birth flower is the least, resting on Victorian tradition rather than any governing body.

Gift ideas for a May 3rd birthday

A small, themed starting point rather than a shopping list — emerald for the stone, Taurus for the sign, and the sky itself on the day.

May birthstone necklace

A simple pendant in the actual May birthstone colour, from a long-running UK jewellery brand.

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Taurus constellation necklace

Stainless steel, sign selectable at checkout — choose Taurus for a May 3rd birthday.

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Personalised birth flower & birthstone disc

Engraved with a name, the May birthstone and the lily of the valley — both in one pendant, in a gift box.

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Personalised star map print

The actual night sky over a chosen place on May 3rd, whichever year — a print rather than jewellery.

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