On this day in space! May 4, 2011: 1st official Star Wars Day celebration

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On May 4, 2011, the first organized Star Wars Day celebration happened in Toronto.

On May 4, 2011, the first organized Star Wars Day celebration happened in Toronto. The date for this occasion was selected for no reason other than the fact that "May the Fourth" kind of sounds like "May the force" (be with you).

Fans dressed as characters from the Star Wars universe attend the 2017 Star Wars Celebration convention. (Image credit: Kevork Djansezian/Getty)

The phrase also came up in British Parliament during a defense debate on May 4, 1994. It eventually started making the rounds on social media through "Star Wars" fan groups and memes. For the first commercial "Star Wars" day celebration, the Toronto Underground Cinema showed screenings of the "Star Wars" movies. Other festivities included costume contests and a "Star Wars" trivia game show.

The annual party just keeps getting bigger. Even astronauts at the space station have celebrated Star Wars Day by watching the movies in orbit.

For more "Star Wars" goodness, check out our guides for the best Star Wars books, epic Lego Star Wars deals and even a ranking of the best Star Wars movies." And if you're looking for how to watch the movies, here's how to watch the Star Wars movies in chronological order.

On This Day in Space: See our full 365-day video archive!

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Hanneke Weitering
Hanneke Weitering
Contributing expert

Hanneke Weitering is a multimedia journalist in the Pacific Northwest reporting on the future of aviation at FutureFlight.aero and Aviation International News and was previously the Editor for Spaceflight and Astronomy news here at Space.com. As an editor with over 10 years of experience in science journalism she has previously written for Scholastic Classroom Magazines, MedPage Today and The Joint Institute for Computational Sciences at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. After studying physics at the University of Tennessee in her hometown of Knoxville, she earned her graduate degree in Science, Health and Environmental Reporting (SHERP) from New York University. Hanneke joined the Space.com team in 2016 as a staff writer and producer, covering topics including spaceflight and astronomy. She currently lives in Seattle, home of the Space Needle, with her cat and two snakes. In her spare time, Hanneke enjoys exploring the Rocky Mountains, basking in nature and looking for dark skies to gaze at the cosmos.