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Declaration day to memorial day to what we have today

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Memorial Day began in 1865 in the mind of Henry Welles, a druggist in tiny Waterloo, N.Y., who wanted to honor the memory of those who died in the Civil War. He found an ally in a friend and customer, Union Army Brig. Gen. John Murray. A year later, they led Waterloo in the first annual observance of a day honoring fallen soldiers. Flags were lowered to half-mast, and locals joined in a parade to three local cemeteries to pay their respects. Some argue that similar traditions had already seized grieving communities across the nation, especially in the war-torn South. Why the credit today goes to Waterloo is largely because of Maj. Gen. John Logan, a friend of Murray and the founder of an organization of Union veterans. In 1868, he designated May 30 as the day to honor dead comrades—largely by scattering flower petals at their grave sites—and ordered local communities to join in Waterloo's celebration. Known as Decoration Day, the idea reached even President Ulysses S. Grant, who presided over a ceremony that year at Arlington National Cemetery.

After World War I, Decoration Day came to include all fallen American soldiers. In 1954, Congress renamed the holiday Memorial Day and eventually dubbed Waterloo its official birthplace. Through the decades, the date of May 30 remained fixed. But that changed in 1971 when Congress declared Memorial Day an official holiday and, much to the delight of the beleaguered American worker, altered its observance to the last Monday in May. ---