May the fourth be with you: What is Star Wars Day and how did it start?

It might just feel like any other Thursday, but today is a truly important day in certain cultural circles. It is May 4 – also known as Star Wars Day. For the uninitiated, fans of George Lucas’s sci-fi franchise have officially adopted May 4 as their holiday, thanks to a play on one of the most famous lines from the films: “May the force be with you.” In recent years, Yoda-themed memes have been shared across social media and the #StarWarsDay hashtag trends each May 4, but its origins date back far, far away from the days of Twitter and Instagram. While it isn't clear exactly when people started to celebrate May 4 as Star Wars Day, newspaper records trace the first use of "May the Fourth Be With You" back to 1979. The phrase was used in an advertisement placed by the Conservative Party in the London Evening News , congratulating Margaret Thatcher on her ascendance to prime minister. "May the Fourth Be With You, Maggie. Congratulations," the advertisement read. In the years that followed, the pun continued to make its way into politics and popular culture, and in 2008, the first official Facebook group was created to mark the day, although then, it was called Luke Skywalker Day. Three years later, the first official in-person celebration of Star Wars Day took place in Toronto, Canada, featuring trivia quizzes, game shows, screenings and a costume competition. In 2013, after Disney purchased Lucasfilm, Star Wars Day was fully embraced and a number of special events were held at Disneyland and Walt Disney World to mark the occasion. However, for some fans, the official Star Wars Day comes on May 25, the date of the first film's release. The Los Angeles City Council even declared the date to be Star Wars Day in 2007, although the California Legislature voted in 2019 to designate May 4 as Star Wars Day. The day is being celebrated on a large and small scale this year. Disney+ is launching the new series Star Wars: Tales of the Underworld on the date, and it comes as the second season gets underway for another franchise series, Andor . A new stand-alone film installment starring Ryan Gosling, and scheduled to be released in 2027, was also recently announced. Disney, which owns the Star Wars franchise, usually marks the day with the launch of new merchandise, ranging from lightsaber sets to jewellery. In New Hope, Pennsylvania, which shares its name with the subtitle of the first Star Wars film, there are plans to have costumed characters throughout town with restaurants serving themed items such as a “YodaRita". A version of this story was first published on May 4, 2023

May the fourth be with you: What is Star Wars Day and how did it start?

It's a play on one of the franchise's most famous phrases, but its origins date back far, far away from social media