What Is Memorial Day and What You Need to Know About the May 30 Holiday

The Memorial Day weekend has become a time to both pay homage to the departed and mark the arrival of what's to come.

The holiday started to commemorate the dead of the Civil War and is observed on the last Monday in May, but it wasn't always that way, as the day was initially set for May 30, no matter what day it fall on.

Day Now Celebrated in Several Ways

With that, the day has become a paid, national holiday for many and a time for vacation and travel for even more.

"This loss of memory and shift into recreation and leisure is a trend in American history," says Matthew Dennis, a history professor at the University of Oregon. "It was a tumultuous time in American history, and the levels of patriotism were quite low at this point in the wake of Vietnam."

The history of the day dates all the way back to the time immediately following the Civil War, a time during which more American soldiers died than any other war in U.S. history.

In the beginning, the day was known as Decoration Day because of the tradition of decorating graves with flowers, flags and wreaths. During the first Memorial Day celebration, former Union Gen. and Ohio Congressman James Garfield made an impassioned speech at Arlington National cemetery to a crowd of at least 5,000.

"We do not know one promise these men made, one pledge they gave, one word they spoke; but we do know they summed up and perfected, by one supreme act, the highest virtues of men and citizens," said Garfield. "For love of country they accepted death, and thus resolved all doubts, and made immortal their patriotism and their virtue."

New York First State to Celebrate Day as State Holiday

The event inspired patriotic feelings among others and in 1983 New York became the first state to make Memorial Day a state holiday. After World War I, the day was expanded to honor the deaths of all those who have died fighting American wars after World War I. With that, came its declaration as a national holiday.

In 1971, Congress passed the Uniform Monday Holiday Act, which established that Memorial Day would be celebrated nationally on the last Monday in May and each year now the president or vice president lays a wreath at Arlington at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

Among the national events scheduled for the day is the National Memorial Day Parade down Constitution Ave. in Washington D.C.