More than 200,000 gathered in the square, including workers’ organizations, political parties, intellectuals and other groups. The Turkish Journalists Union, or TGS, participated in the gathering; its members carried their cameras. They also held up a banner that read, "Media boss, who is enemy to laborers."
Banners displayed by other groups in the crowd read, “Your murders, your September 12 cannot deter us. We are here after 33 years,” “Secure job and a humane life,” “Job, Bread, Freedom,” and “Our stone throwing kids should be released.”
Many people passed over the barriers surrounding the Monument of the Republic in Taksim Square and climbed on the sculpture. They held banners and flags, chanted slogans, and took pictures of each other on the monument.
Taksim Square had been declared off-limits since the bloodshed during a May Day rally there in 1977 when gunmen, believed to be far-right militants aided by members of the intelligence services, fired on a peaceful crowd, triggering mass panic.
The deaths came at a time of severe political tensions and street violence between leftist and rightist militants in Turkey, which culminated in a military coup in 1980.
In the past, trade unions have tried to hold rallies at Taksim Square in defiance of the ban, but met with a heavy police crackdown that left dozens injured and hundreds in detention.
The government's decision to fully open the square to May day celebrations comes after Parliament reinstated May Day as a national holiday in 2009 and allowed a limited group of union leaders and workers into Taksim on May 1 to commemorate the 1977 bloodshed.

For 1976 celebrations >>> http://www.cetinbostanoglu.com/may76/01may76.htm

For 1977 celebrations >>> http://www.cetinbostanoglu.com/may77/01may77.htm