Memorial Day this year is observed today...Monday, May 25.

Originally Memorial Day was known as Decoration Day and was meant to honor the Union and the Confederate soldiers who died during the American Civil War.

The Civil War, which ended in the spring of 1865, claimed more lives than any conflict in U.S. history and required the establishment of the country’s first national cemeteries. By the late 1860s, Americans in various towns and cities had begun holding springtime tributes to these countless fallen soldiers, decorating the graves of the soldiers with flowers and reciting prayers.

Some records show that less than a month after the Confederacy surrendered in 1865, one of the earliest memorial commemorations was organized by a group of freed slaves in Charleston, South Carolina.

Waterloo, New York, first celebrated a day of commemoration on May 5, 1866. It then hosted an annual, community-wide event; businesses closed and residents decorated the graves of soldiers with flowers and flags. Note: In 1966 the federal government declared Waterloo, New York, the official birthplace of Memorial Day.

On May 5, 1868, General John A. Logan, leader of an organization for Northern Civil War veterans, called for a nationwide day of remembrance later that month. “The 30th of May, 1868, is designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers, or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village and hamlet churchyard in the land,” he proclaimed. The date of Decoration Day, as he called it, was chosen because it wasn’t the anniversary of any particular battle.

On the first Decoration Day, General James Garfield made a speech at Arlington National Cemetery, and 5,000 participants decorated the graves of the 20,000 Union and Confederate soldiers buried there.

By the 1900s it had become a day to celebrate all American soldiers who died while serving in the military. Memorial Day, as Decoration Day gradually came to be known, originally honored only those lost while fighting in the Civil War. But during World War I the United States found itself embroiled in another major conflict, and the holiday evolved to commemorate American military personnel who died in all wars, including World War II, The Vietnam War, The Korean War and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

For decades, Memorial Day continued to be observed on May 30, the date Logan had selected for the first Decoration Day. In 1968 Congress passed the Uniform Monday Holiday Act, which established Memorial Day as the last Monday in May in order to create a three-day weekend for federal employees; the change went into effect in 1971. The same law also declared Memorial Day a federal holiday.

The holiday unofficially marks the beginning of the summer season. Many Americans observe Memorial Day by visiting cemeteries or memorials, holding family gatherings and participating in parades. It is a little known fact that a national moment of remembrance takes place on Memorial Day at 3:00 PM local time.

Some people wear a red poppy in remembrance of those fallen in war—a tradition that began with a World War I poem.

IN FLANDERS FIELDS
- John McCrae

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Note: Veterans Day is distinct from Memorial Day, a U.S. public holiday in May. Veterans Day celebrates the service of all U.S. military veterans, while Memorial Day honors those who have died while in military service.

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Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. John 15:13 ESV

A time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace. Eccliasiates 3:8

For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:38-39 NIV

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