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:
-
Papa was a flightless bird
-
Dreaming of the Tyrrhenian Sea
-
National Love a Tree Day
-
Once upon a midafternoon dreary…
-
Not your average sandcastle
-
Ahh-tumn
-
Swimming with the sea cows
-
A picture-perfect day on Trillium
-
Getting to the bottom of the underwater waterfall
-
The Cordillera de la Sal in the Cordillera Domeyko Range of Chile
-
It’s Art Deco Weekend in Miami
-
Gazing upon Portraits of Change
-
Is there a bug-egg emoji for this?
-
High alpine color in Colorado
-
Illuminations on the Gulf of Poets
-
Four little birds sitting in a tree…
-
From Sputnik to extraterrestrial storms
-
Looking down on the Otter
-
Sailing across the ice
-
It s Star Wars Day