(i) In India, Labour day was first celebrated on May 1, 1923 in Chennai.
(ii) The celebrations were organised by the Labour Kisan Party of Hindustan, founded by M. Singaravelu.
(iii) He was one of the early leaders of the Communist Party of India.

(i) After the Civil War, workers organized strikes in U.S.A. One major strike was the Great Railroad Strike of 1877.
(ii) Wage cuts in the railroad industry, in the context of a prolonged economic depression, led to the strike.
(iii) It began in West Virginia and spread to three additional states over a period of 45 days.
(iv) It was crushed by a combination of vigilantes, National Guardsmen, and Federal Army.

(i) Known as Chartism, this working class movement was active between 1836 and 1848.
(ii) The Chartists called for voting rights to every man over twenty-one years of age, secret ballot (voting), abolition of property qualification for members of the parliament, annual parliamentary elections and equal representation.

(i) Combination Laws of 1799 prohibited the formation of associations of workers.
(ii) In the early decades of the nineteenth century there were Luddites.
(iii) Fearing the loss of jobs due to the introduction of machines, Luddites protested by wrecking machines.
(iv) The Combination Laws were repealed in 1824.
(v) Yet the workers could not form a national union.

(i) While the peasants were pauperized and the working class suffered, the middle class became wealthy by investing capital in trade and industry.
(ii) The governments of the day were influenced by them.
(iii) All legislations safeguarded their interests.
(iv) Labourers were not permitted to form trade unions.
(v) It was under these circumstances that Socialism as a new ideology was born in Europe.

(i) Industrial Revolution required fuel.
(ii) Coal was needed in vast quantities.
(iii) Before the Industrial Revolution, two types of mines existed: drift mines and bell pits.
(iv) Both were small scale coal mines and the extracted coal was used in homes and local work spots.
(v) As industrialisation gained pace, more and more coal was needed to fuel steam engines and furnaces.
(vi) The development of factories by Arkwright and the improvement of the steam engine by James Watt further increased demand for coal.
(vii) As a result, coal mines became deeper and deeper, making it more and more dangerous.
(viii) As miners used oil lamps in the mines the risk of explosion was high leading to the death of miners.
(ix) This was reduced by the invention of a safety lamp by Sir Humphrey Davy in 1815.

(i) In 1733 John Kay invented the 'Flying Shuttle' increasing the speed of the weaving of cloth. In 1767 James Hargreaves invented 'the spinning jenny' which spun eight threads at one and the same time.
(ii) Richard Arkwright invented the 'waterframe' which used water power in the place of manpower.
(iii) In 1779 Samuel Crompton invented his 'spinning mule' which included a combination of both the 'spinningjenny' and the 'water frame'. It spun hundreds of threads simultaneously.
(iv) Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin in 1793. Removing the seed from the cotton increased the productivity manifold.
(v) Textile manufacture was at the heart of the Industrial Revolution. Over a span of fifty years, the textile manufacturing industry in Britain witnessed a transformation in the method of production from handmade to machine-made goods.
(vi) The newly invented machines enabled factories to produce textile goods in large quantities.
(vii) Derbyshire, Lancashire, Cheshire, Staffordshire, Nottinghamshire, and Yorkshire became the major factory centres.
(viii) The most notable was Manchester which had more than 50 mills in 1802.

The Industrial Revolution began in England first because, it had certain objective conditions. They were:
(i) England had abundant resources and possessed colonies, with India being "the brightest jewel in the British Crown".
(ii) Access to coal, iron and raw cotton from the colonies.
(iii) England possessed the required infrastructure for textiles, developed by immigrant artisans from the Netherlands.
(iv) England had a developed banking system, a growing entrepreneurial class, and potential investors.
(v) Encouragement of the Royal Society of England for scientific discoveries and inventions.
(vi) Political stability of England to bestow its full attention to industrial growth.

The main attributes of the Industrial Revolution were technological, socio-economic and cultural.
(i) Use of new basic materials: iron and steel
(i) Use of new energy sources: coal, electricity, petroleum
(iii) Invention of new machines such as the spinning jenny and the power loom that increased the production with a minimum expending of human energy
(iv) Emergence of a new organization known as the factory system, which entailed increased division of labour and specialisation of work
(v) Development in transportation and communication
(vi) Increasing application of science to industry
(vii) The use of new technology