This year Dragon Boat Festival falls on this coming Monday 2 June 2014 which is today!  There are a few versions of how the history came about.  For what I learnt at school it is about Qu Yuan.  He was a poet and minister (c. 340–278 BC) of the ancient state of Chu.  To cut the long story short, he committed suicide by drowning himself in the Miluo River.  The local people raced out to save him but was unable to do so.  So they dropped balls of sticky rice (dumpling) into the river so that the fish would eat them instead of Qu Yuan’s body.