05-26-2013, 11:35 AM
Did you know?...
-Memorial Day was first called “Decoration Day” because of the practice of decorating soldier’s graves with flowers.
-General John Alexander Logan ordered the day to be observed by decorating the war dead on May 30, 1868; 3 years after the end of the American Civil War.
- New York was the 1st state to officially recognize Memorial Day.
-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.
-Memorial Day was declared a federal holiday in 1971.
-The tradition of wearing red poppies (now the official flower of Memorial Day) began in 1915 when, inspired by the poem In Flanders Fields, Moina Michael replied with her own poem.
We cherish too, the Poppy red
That grows on fields where valor led,
It seems to signal to the skies
That blood of heroes never dies.
![[Image: images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRfQ6rNR-EbvNxZl7ht0kd...lQc473n_aH]](https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRfQ6rNR-EbvNxZl7ht0kdOaq2z6omzRwVPgxxy43lQc473n_aH)
-Memorial Day was first called “Decoration Day” because of the practice of decorating soldier’s graves with flowers.
-General John Alexander Logan ordered the day to be observed by decorating the war dead on May 30, 1868; 3 years after the end of the American Civil War.
- New York was the 1st state to officially recognize Memorial Day.
-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.
-Memorial Day was declared a federal holiday in 1971.
-The tradition of wearing red poppies (now the official flower of Memorial Day) began in 1915 when, inspired by the poem In Flanders Fields, Moina Michael replied with her own poem.
We cherish too, the Poppy red
That grows on fields where valor led,
It seems to signal to the skies
That blood of heroes never dies.