The second day of a three day holiday called Memorial Day.
How did we get so far from the original Memorial Day of May 30th? In 2016 the holiday will again visit the day it was first celebrated.
Another name for the day of remembrance of those who died for the country they loved, is "Decoration Day."
The entire concept of Memorial Day started after the end of the Civil War in the USA.
...The 1868 celebration (click here) was inspired by local observances that had taken place in various locations in the three years since the end of the Civil War. In fact, several cities claim to be the birthplace of Memorial Day, including Columbus, Mississippi; Macon, Georgia; Richmond, Virginia; Boalsburg, Pennsylvania; and Carbondale, Illinois. In 1966, the federal government, under the direction of President Lyndon B. Johnson, declared Waterloo, New York, the official birthplace of Memorial Day. They chose Waterloo–which had first celebrated the day on May 5, 1866–because the town had made Memorial Day an annual, community-wide event, during which businesses closed and residents decorated the graves of soldiers with flowers and flags....
This is a little more history.
The enormity of human pain (click here) and death associated with the Civil War, unprecedented in so many ways, inspired equally novel responses. Most significant among these was the creation of Memorial Day, an annual national holiday urging citizens to decorate the graves of their soldier dead and observe a day of solemn reflection in gratitude and remembrance....
