Monday, May 25, 2009

Happy Memorial Day!



I found some information about Memorial Day
that I wanted to share. I didn't know most of these.
How about you?


Memorial Day Trivia

Memorial Day is a day of remembrance of those who have died serving our country.
Memorial Day began as a commemoration for those soldiers who died during the Civil War.
The south refused to honor the dead on Memorial Day until after World War I when the meaning of Memorial Day changed from honoring civil war dead to honoring Americans who died fighting in any war.
General John Alexander Logan ordered the Memorial Day holiday to be observed by decorating the war dead.
On Memorial Day, the flag should be at half-staff until noon only, then raised to the top of the staff.
Memorial Day was originally called Decoration Day.
1st state to officially recognize Memorial Day was New York.
Red Poppies are recognized as the Memorial Day flower.


Memorial Day History

1st Memorial Day was May 30, 1968; celebrated by placing flowers on the graves of Union and Confederate soldiers.
1915 Moina Michael began the custom of wearing red poppies on Memorial Day in honor of those who died serving the nation during war.
1950’s – the tradition of placing American flags on each of the 260,000+ gravestones at Arlington National Cemetery on the Thursday before Memorial Day by the 1200 soldiers of the 3rd US Infantry began.
May 1966 President Lyndon Johnson declared Waterloo New York as the birthplace of Memorial Day.
1971 – The National Holiday Act of 1971 changed Memorial Day from May 30th to the last Monday in May.
2000 – National Moment of Remembrance Resolution passed. At 3pm on Memorial Day all American are asked to “voluntarily and informally observe in their own way a moment of remembrance & respect pausing from whatever they are doing for a moment of silence or listening to taps.

Hope you all have a wonderful day!

1 comments:

kerrie said...

Thanks for all the history on Memorial Day in such a concise way. I'm always interested in the history of the holidays.

Your blog is very cute too!