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The first observed Loyalty Day, originally called Americanization Day, occurred on May 1, 1921, during the First Red Scare a period in the early 20th-century of U.S. history in which widespread fear of far-left extremism riveted the country.
During the Second Red Scare in the mid-1950s, President Dwight D. Eisenhower proclaimed May 1, 1955 the first observed Loyalty Day in the United States. In 1958, it was made an official recurring holiday by the U.S. Congress.