Memorial day facts
The beginning Memorial Day was formerly known as Decoration Day and was originally intended to commemorate the soldiers who had fallen in the American Civil War.
A change Memorial Day was originally observed on May 30 before 1971, when it became a Federal Holiday and was moved to the last Monday in May in order to give Americans a longer weekend to commemorate their fallen loved ones..
rememberance act In the year 2000 Congress passed the National Monument of Remembrance Act, which requires all Americans to stop what they are doing at 3 p.m. on Memorial Day to give a minute of silence to remember and honor those who died while in service to the U.S.
poppies The idea of using red poppies to commemorate fallen soldiers first appeared in the poem, “In Flander’s Field,” written by Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae in 1915. In 1924, when faced with a shortage of poppies from French manufacturers, the first artificial poppy factory was created in Pittsburgh, Penn. It employed veterans who needed work.
