today we're looking at memorial day
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where you'll find more resources that go with many of the bellringer videos memorial day
is a holiday for americans to stop and honor those who gave their lives in military service
and those who served and have passed away this tradition is not unique to america if you go back
in ancient history back to the ancient greeks and romans you'll see that they had special days to
honor those who had died in military service but in america memorial day was really born out of
the civil war during the civil war there were over 620 000 americans who died fighting for either the
north or the south americans felt that they needed to have a day to honor those who had fought and
died in the war and so in 1868 general john logan who was in charge of the largest veterans group
known as the grand army of the republic developed an idea for a day to honor those who had died
logan issued an order that may 30th would be the day to remember all those who had died in the
civil war logan chose may 30th because there was no major civil war battle that occurred on that
date and then also he knew that flowers would be in bloom at that time of the year initially the
day was called decoration day because people went out and decorated the graves of fallen soldiers
with flowers and flags but in former confederate states they were not as pleased with the holiday
because for one thing they said the holiday was created and intended for union soldiers secondly
they argued that they had already established their own traditions to honor the southern dead
one of the earliest being in columbus mississippi in 1866 when a local women's group visited the
cemetery there to decorate graves of confederate soldiers who had fallen at the battle of shiloh
by 1890 every union state during the civil war had accepted decoration day as an official holiday and
up until world war one it was a holiday that only honored those killed during the civil war but in
the wake of world war one in which more than one hundred thousand americans died decoration day
transformed and memorial day was expanded to honor fallen american soldiers from all
american conflicts in 1921 the first unidentified soldier was buried at arlington national cemetery
in the tomb of the unknown soldier and each year the president or the vice president lays a wreath
on the tomb in honor of all soldiers who have fallen it was also during world war one that the
red poppy flower became a symbol of remembrance during world war one canadian lieutenant colonel
john mccrae spotted red poppies blooming in the midst of a battlefield and then he wrote the poem
in flanders field which speaks of the war and remembering those who had fallen and to this day
veteran groups still hand out red poppies as a symbol of remembrance later after world war ii
in the korean war memorial day gained more and more of a following but it was not until 1968
that memorial day officially became a federal holiday it was declared a federal holiday as
part of the uniform monday holiday act as part of the act memorial day was moved from may 30th
to the last monday in may of each year in order to give americans a three-day weekend
the law did not go into effect until 1971. many people began to argue that moving the
holiday to create a three-day weekend actually made americans lose focus of what the holiday
was actually all about and instead became more of the kickoff of summer and became a way for
retailers to try to get customers to come to their stores in december of 2000 congress passed the
national moment of remembrance act and it was signed into law by then president bill clinton
the act encouraged americans to stop whatever they were doing on memorial day at 3 p.m and observe
a moment of silence in remembrance of those who gave the ultimate sacrifice for the nation
on this memorial day i really hope that you take a moment to look back and remember those who paid
the ultimate price for our freedom and remember those who are willing to serve maybe take a moment
to thank a veteran or someone who is currently serving in the military for their willingness
to serve our country so with that hopefully you learned something and thanks for watching