An American holiday observed on the last Monday of May, Memorial Day, originally known as Decoration Day, honors men and women who died while serving in the U.S. military.
The holiday originated after the Civil War and became an official federal holiday in 1971.
Many towns have parades on Memorial Day, with some events concluding with a memorial service. Celebrating the holiday typically involves decorating with flags or its colors, buying and wearing a memorial “poppy,” participating in the National Moment of Remembrance, and/or thanking a military veteran.
Origins of Memorial Day can be traced back to the post-Civil War. In 1868, the Grand Army of the Republic, an organization of Union veterans founded in Decatur, Ill., established the holiday as a time for the nation to decorate the graves of the Union war dead with flowers.
The practice of decorating soldiers’ graves with flowers in the United States predates the Civil War, having been a common practice. But the sheer number of soldiers of both sides who died in the Civil War (more than 600,000) meant that burial and memorialization took on new cultural significance.
Under the leadership of women during the Civil War, an increasingly formal practice of decorating graves had taken shape. In 1865, the federal government began creating national military cemeteries for the Union war dead.
By the 20th century, competing Union and Confederate holiday traditions, celebrated on different days, had merged, and Memorial Day eventually extended to honor all Americans who died while in the military service.
The date also marks the start of the unofficial summer vacation season, with Labor Day on the first Monday of September marking its end.
Memorial Day has become an occasion for stump speeches by veterans, politicians, and ministers about the impact of war, providing a means for people to make sense of their history in terms of sacrifice for a better nation.
In the early days of Memorial Day following the Civil War, people of all religious beliefs joined together and the point was often made that the German and Irish soldiers had become true Americans in the “baptism of blood” on the battlefield.
Memorial Day commemorates the men and women who died while serving. Veterans Day, on the other hand, celebrates the service of all U.S. military veterans.
