05/26/2026
MEMORIAL DAY HISTORY
Memorial Day was established as a national holiday to remember those people who died while serving in the U.S. armed forces. It is currently observed every year on the last Monday of May.
The observance of Memorial Day originated with the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR), an organization of veterans who served in the U.S. Army, Navy, Marine Corps and Revenue Cutter Service (predecessor of the modern Coast Guard) during the American Civil War, as a special day to honor their fallen comrades.
It was first called "Decoration Day," because it began as a day set aside, separately in both the North and South, when the widows and orphans of the dead would gather at the graves of their loved ones to decorate them with flowers and other remembrances. The GAR’s first Decoration Day commemoration took place at Arlington National Cemetery on 30 May 1868.
The observance as we know it spread from local events until it became a nation-wide day of remembrance. In 1882, Decoration Day became Memorial Day, but use of the new name did not become widely accepted until after World War II. By 1890, it was a state holiday in all states, although former Confederate states continued to observe it on a different day until after the end of World War I.
At that time, the holiday had evolved to commemorate America's military dead in all wars. When the Uniform Monday Holiday Act of 1968 took effect in January 1971, the observation of Memorial Day shifted to the last Monday in May.