|
Click to listen to this article
|
Originally called Decoration day, Memorial Day takes place on the last Monday in the Month of May each year at 3:00 p.m. local time. The observance is to honor the men and women who died while serving in the U.S. military.
Following the end of the Civil war in the spring of 1865, Americans in various towns and cities started holding springtime tribunes to countless fallen soldiers by decorating their graves with flowers and reciting prayers.
Memorial Day was first widely observed May 30 1868. By proclamation of Gen. John A Logan of the Grand Army of the Republic, it is to commemorate the sacrifices of Civil War soldiers. It was at this first commemoration that Union Gen. and sitting Ohio Congressman James Garfield made a speech at Arlington National Cemetery where 5,000 participants helped decorate the graves of over 20,000 Union and Confederate soldiers who were buried there.
It was in 1966 that Waterloo, New York was declared the official birthplace of Memorial Day. Waterloo was chosen because it hosted an annual community wide event, during which businesses closed and residents decorated the graves of soldiers with flowers and flags dating back to May 5, 1866.
SOURCE: USDA
