Today the United States marks Memorial Day, a day set aside to honor those members of the US armed forces who have died while serving their country. While it was celebrated independently by various towns across the country in the aftermath of the Civil War, Union General John A. Logan was the first to call for a national day of remembrance on May 30, 1868. Originally called Decoration Day, it was a day set aside for the public to offer prayers and honors for those lost to battle and to decorate their graves with flags and flowers. On the first national Decoration Day, over 5,000 widows, orphans, and other mourners attended a ceremony in Arlington National Cemetery, and placed flowers on the graves of Union and Confederate soldiers interred there. Originally only a commemoration of those soldiers killed in the Civil War, by the end of WWI it had come to be a holiday honoring all American war casualties from the Revolutionary War onward.
Here we mark the price of freedom
More Desktop Wallpapers:
-
Zion National Park Turns 100
-
It s Independence Day
-
Where the wildflowers grow
-
Honoring the first American woman in space
-
Beethoven s 250th
-
A notorious gunfight that was incorrectly named
-
Ancient art in the Amazon
-
Ponta da Piedade rock formations in Portugal
-
Après-ski in the Dolomites
-
Groundhog Day arrives—beyond a shadow of a doubt
-
Monet still makes an impression
-
The stylish Spanish shawl
-
We heart Berlin
-
Ancient storage in the Grand Canyon
-
Meandering through Patagonia
-
Hiking the High Trestle Trail
-
Of moose and Maine
-
A plot was afoot
-
Winter in the Finnish wilds
-
Florentine garden brings generations together