Memorial Day is an American holiday, observed on the last Monday of May, honoring the men and women who died while serving in the U.S. military. Memorial Day 2024 will occur on Monday, May 27. 

Originally known as Decoration Day, it originated in the years following the Civil War and became an official federal holiday in 1971. Many Americans observe Memorial Day by visiting cemeteries or memorials, holding family gatherings and participating in parades. Unofficially, it marks the beginning of the summer season.

The Civil War, which ended in the spring of 1865, claimed more lives than any conflict in U.S. history and required the establishment of the country’s first national cemeteries.
By the late 1860s, Americans in various towns and cities had begun holding springtime tributes to these countless fallen soldiers, decorating their graves with flowers and reciting prayers.
It is unclear where exactly this tradition originated; numerous different communities may have independently initiated the memorial gatherings. And some records show that one of the earliest Memorial Day commemorations was organized by a group of formerly enslaved people in Charleston, South Carolina less than a month after the Confederacy surrendered in 1865. Nevertheless, in 1966 the federal government declared Waterloo, New York, the official birthplace of Memorial Day.
Waterloo—which first celebrated the day on May 5, 1866—was chosen because it hosted an annual, community-wide event, during which businesses closed and residents decorated the graves of soldiers with flowers and flags.

Did you know? Each year on Memorial Day a national moment of remembrance takes place at 3:00 p.m. local time.
Decoration Day

On May 5, 1868, General John A. Logan, leader of an organization for Northern Civil War veterans, called for a nationwide day of remembrance later that month. “The 30th of May, 1868, is designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers, or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village and hamlet churchyard in the land,” he proclaimed. 
The date of Decoration Day, as he called it, was chosen because it wasn’t the anniversary of any particular battle.
On the first Decoration Day, General James Garfieldmade a speech at Arlington National Cemetery, and 5,000 participants decorated the graves of the 20,000 Civil War soldiers buried there. 
Many Northern states held similar commemorative events and reprised the tradition in subsequent years; by 1890 each one had made Decoration Day an official state holiday. Southern states, on the other hand, continued to honor the dead on separate days until after World War I.

History of Memorial Day
Memorial Day, as Decoration Day gradually came to be known, originally honored only those lost while fighting in the Civil War. But during World War I the United States found itself embroiled in another major conflict, and the holiday evolved to commemorate American military personnel who died in all wars, including World War II, The Vietnam War, The Korean War and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
For decades, Memorial Day continued to be observed on May 30, the date General Logan had selected for the first Decoration Day. But in 1968, Congress passed the Uniform Monday Holiday Act, which established Memorial Day as the last Monday in May in order to create a three-day weekend for federal employees. The change went into effect in 1971. The same law also declared Memorial Day a federal holiday.
Memorial Day Traditions and Rituals 

Cities and towns across the United States host Memorial Day parades each year, often incorporating military personnel and members of veterans’ organizations. Some of the largest parades take place in Chicago, New York and Washington, D.C.
Americans also observe Memorial Day by visiting cemeteries and memorials. Some people wear a red poppy in remembrance of those fallen in war—a tradition that began with a World War I poem. On a less somber note, many people take weekend trips or throw parties and barbecues on the holiday, perhaps because Memorial Day weekend—the long weekend comprising the Saturday and Sunday before Memorial Day and Memorial Day itself—unofficially marks the beginning of summer.

At the close of the Civil War, people recently freed from slavery in Charleston honored fallen Union soldiers.
Memorial Day was born out of necessity. After the American Civil War, a battered United States was faced with the task of burying and honoring the 600,000 to 800,000 Union and Confederate soldiers who had died in the single bloodiest military conflict in American history. The first national commemoration of Memorial Day was held in Arlington National Cemetery on May 30, 1868, where both Union and Confederate soldiers are buried. 
Several towns and cities across America claim to have observed their own earlier versions of Memorial Day or “Decoration Day” as early as 1866. (The earlier name is derived from the fact that decorating graves was and remains a central activity of Memorial Day.) 
But it wasn’t until a remarkable discovery in a dusty Harvard University archive the late 1990s that historians learned about a Memorial Day commemoration organized by a group of Black people freed from enslavement less than a month after the Confederacy surrendered in 1865.

What Is the Difference Between Veterans Day and Memorial Day?
Both honor U.S. military personnel—but the holidays arose for different reasons.

The federal holidays of Veterans Day and Memorial Day are both designed to celebrate members of the U.S. military, but there are a few key differences. Memorial Day, which took shape after the Civil War, is considered a day to honor those who were killed in or as a result of participating in battle. Veterans Day, which materialized at the end of World War I, is a day to honor all service men and women, but especially those who remain with us to share their experiences.

History of Memorial Day,

Memorial Day began as "Decoration Day," a designated time to decorate the gravestones of many of the roughly 620,000 people killed in the Civil War.
It is unclear when and where this act of commemoration first took place: around 25 communities have been tied to the origin of Memorial Day, according to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, with one such event reportedly held as far back as October 1864 in Boalsburg, Pennsylvania. In 1868, the head of the Grand Army of the Republic, an organization of Union veterans, established May 30 as Decoration Day, encouraging Americans to decorate the graves of the war dead with flowers.
New York became the first state to designate Decoration Day a legal holiday in 1873, and by 1890, every other former Union state had followed suit. By the conclusion of World War I, the focus shifted from honoring those killed on Civil War battlefields to all men and women who had died while fighting for the United States. In the years that followed, the holiday became more widely known as Memorial Day.
In 1968, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law the Uniform Holiday Bill, which packaged several federal holidays into the tail end of three-day weekends with the hope of stimulating travel and commerce. As a result, Memorial Day has been celebrated on the fourth Monday of May since 1971. Unofficially, it marks the beginning of the summer season.
Famous Memorial Day Quotes
"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. For love of country they accepted death, and thus resolved all doubts, and made immortal their patriotism and their virtue." — James Garfield
"Our debt to the heroic men and valiant women in the service of our country can never be repaid. They have earned our undying gratitude. America will never forget their sacrifices." — Harry S. Truman
Memorial Day Traditions
 

With schools and businesses closed for the holiday, many communities feature parades for service men and women as part of annual Memorial Day celebrations. Some people wear poppies as a symbol of the lives lost in service.
 

National commemoration of the holiday at Arlington National Cemetery reflects the holiday's earliest tradition: gravestones of the interred are decorated with American flags, while a wreath is placed at the Tomb of the Unknown Solider. Per the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, flags are to be flown at half-staff from sunrise until noon, and then raised to the top of the staff until sunset.
In 2000, President Bill Clinton signed the National Moment of Remembrance Act, which encourages Americans to pause their Memorial Day activities at 3 p.m. local time to reflect on those who died while serving the country.
 

History of Veterans Day
Although World War I formally ended with signing of the Treaty of Versailles on June 28, 1919, it was the cessation of fighting between the Allied forces and Germany at 11 a.m. on November 11, 1918, that came to symbolize the end of the Great War.
President Woodrow Wilson subsequently proclaimed the first "Armistice Day" on November 11, 1919, an occasion to be commemorated with parades and the temporary suspension of businesses at 11 a.m. By that time, the governors of six states had already declared the day a legal holiday.
Congress formally recognized the annual November 11 observance in 1926, and in 1938, Armistice Day became a legal U.S. holiday, dedicated to the promise of world peace.
Toward the end of the following decade, however, public sentiment toward the celebration of peace was shifting toward a recognition of the sacrifices made by the 16-plus million Americans who had participated in World War II. According to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, the first official "National Veterans Day" event took place in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1947.
The Uniform Holiday Bill of 1968 moved Veterans Day from November 11 to the fourth Monday in October. However, the change was met with resistance by traditionalists who considered the date to be inseparable from the rites of observance. Following congressional hearings to discuss the issue, President Gerald Ford in 1975 reinstated the holiday's original date of November 11, effective 1978.