Memorial Day

When it falls

The last Monday of May every year, a federal holiday. The flag is flown at half-staff until noon, then raised to the top.

The Phala almanac gives the exact day for your own city; the lunar and solar rules above are what it computes from.

The story

It began as Decoration Day after the Civil War, when the women of the South and the North decorated the graves of the fallen of both sides with spring flowers; General Logan of the Union veterans fixed 30 May 1868 for it, and Waterloo in New York was named its birthplace by Congress in 1966. After the First World War the day widened to all the war dead, and it moved to the last Monday of May in 1971.

The red poppy of the day comes from the fields of Flanders and the poem; the American Legion has sold them for the day since 1920. The National Moment of Remembrance is three in the afternoon.

How the day is kept

• The President lays a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery, where small flags are placed at every one of the quarter of a million graves by soldiers of the Old Guard in the days before.
• Parades in the small towns, with the veterans and the high-school band; the speeches at the war memorial on the green.
• Graves visited and decorated with flowers and flags; the Indianapolis 500 run on the Sunday.
• The three-day weekend that opens the American summer, with the beaches and the pools opened.

More ancestors and remembrance