I don’t think I’ve ever talked about Empire Day in past Star Wars posts. If you’re a pretty devout fan then you should be fairly familiar with Empire Day. It has a pretty interesting history and an unusual link to the United Kingdom. In Star Wars canon, Empire Day is known as the day Sheev Palpatine becomes the Emperor and creates the “first galactic Empire”. It is also the day Ezra Bridger is born. A corresponding Earth calendar date doesn’t exist. So you may be wondering why I am talking about it today? Should we be wishing each other a Happy Empire Day?
An Interesting, Historical Coincidence
As I was saying, Empire Day has an unusual and interesting coincidence with the United Kingdom. The British used to celebrate Empire Day, however it wasn’t (initially) because of Star Wars. When Queen Victoria died in 1901 the first “Empire Day” was celebrated on her birthday, May 24th, in 1902. It wasn’t recognized as an official annual event until 1916, at which point it became a major event. This lasted until 1958 when the day was “rebranded” as Commonwealth Day and the date was changed to the second Monday in March.
Empire Day experienced a bit of a revival when it landed on May 20th which, coincidentally, is also the date that The Empire Strikes Back was released in the UK, thus why I am talking about it today. This is what Bob Ross might refer to as a “happy accident”. I admit it’s a little convoluted and a bit of a stretch at a “Star Wars holiday” which may be why it’s not as broadly acknowledged among all the other “Star Wars days” this month. Be that as it “May” (see what I did there) it’s still gives me the opportunity to talk about it.
Will Empire Day ever get it’s own calendar date? Who knows? I think May 20th is probably as close to any date as you’re going to get. I’m curious if folks in the UK celebrate today by watching Empire Strikes Back on, what would be, it’s 41st anniversary.
Happy Empire Day!
You don’t know the power of the dark side.