Memorial Day is 161 years old - and its true origin was buried almost immediately | Fortune

Memorial Day is observed on the last Monday of May, with this year’s date being May 25. The holiday centers on reflection and remembrance of those who died while serving in the U.S. military. Observance includes the National Moment of Remembrance, which encourages Americans to pause at 3 p.m. for a moment of silence. The holiday’s origins trace to the American Civil War, which killed more than 600,000 service members between 1861 and 1865. A first national observance, then called Decoration Day, occurred May 30, 1868, when Union veterans called for decorating war graves with flowers. Earlier local observances occurred in places such as Waterloo, New York, and Boalsburg, Pennsylvania, and some women in Confederate states decorated graves before the war ended.

"Memorial Day is a U.S. holiday that is officially about mourning the nation's fallen service members, but it has come to signal the unofficial start of summer and a long weekend of travel and discounts on anything from mattresses to lawn mowers."

"It's a day of reflection and remembrance of those who died while serving in the U.S. military, according to the Congressional Research Service. The holiday is observed in part by the National Moment of Remembrance, which encourages all Americans to pause at 3 p.m. for a moment of silence."

"The holiday's origins can be traced to the American Civil War, which killed more than 600,000 service members, Union and Confederate, between 1861 and 1865. The first national observance of what was then called Decoration Day occurred May 30, 1868, after an organization of Union veterans called for decorating war graves with flowers that were in bloom."

"David Blight, a Yale history professor, points to May 1, 1865, when as many as 10,000 people, many of them Black, held a parade, heard speeches and dedicated the graves of Union dead in Charleston, South Carolina. "What happened in Charleston does have the right to claim to be first, if that matters," Blight told The Associated Press in 2011."

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