We are just a day away from the long Memorial Day weekend, with the official holiday being commemorated on Monday. Memorial Day has always been a very special holiday for me. It not only is the unofficial start of the summer, but it is, by its very definition, a day set aside to remember those who have given their lives in defense of our nation. As a child, I remember our family visiting the local cemetery to honor the war dead. The veterans’ graves were each marked with a small American flag. The headstones were draped with flowers, many of them red poppies. In my hometown, there was a Memorial Day parade that ended in the cemetery with a solemn ceremony. That ceremony always included the firing of rifles and the playing of taps as a salute to the war dead.

There are lots of traditions around this holiday of remembrance. Some of them are part of the official, federal law surrounding the day. Others have become part of our observance because someone started a movement to remember those who have fallen. Here are some facts about Memorial Day that you may not know.

Memorial Day was originally commemorated on May 30, kind of. May 30 was selected by General John Logan, who in 1868 was the leader of a veteran’s group known as the Grand Army of the Republic. Three years after the Civil War ended, Logan issued a decree that citizens should take to the cemeteries on May 30 to decorate the graves of the 620,000 soldiers who died during the nation’s war. There were several communities that were already taking part in local Decoration Days, particularly in the South. Logan’s decree was the first to call the nation to observe the war dead on a single day. Logan’s proclamation resonated with people across the nation. Over 5,000 people came to Arlington National Cemetery to decorate the graves of 20,000 Union and Confederate soldiers on May 30, 1868. That date quickly caught on as Decoration Day. By 1890, all of the northern states had adopted it as a holiday. Many southern states resisted the May 30 date and observed their own dates for Decoration Day. However, after WWI, the meaning of the day was changed to honor all fallen service members killed in conflict, not just the veterans of the Civil War. After this, all states, be they northern or southern, observed the May 30 date as a solemn holiday.

There is a lot of dispute over where Memorial Day was first observed. Ironton, Ohio, has had a Memorial Day parade for every year since May 1868. However, there were many communities setting aside a day for remembrance of fallen soldiers prior to 1868. Charleston, South Carolina, claims to have observed the first Memorial Day on May 1, 1865 when a group of freed slaves reinterred the remains of 250 Union prisoners of war who had been placed in a mass grave and held a memorial service for them. Boalsburg, Pennsylvania, claims that women of their community were decorating graves before the war had ended in 1864. More than 20 communities have laid claim to the first Memorial Day observance. However, it took an act of Congress in 1967 to declare that Waterloo, New York, was the official birthplace of Memorial Day. The citizens of Waterloo shut down their businesses in 1866 to allow their citizens a day to decorate the graves of the war dead.

Red poppies have been a traditional symbol of Memorial Day. The tradition was started by a teacher named Moina Michael. In 1915, in the midst of WWI, she was inspired by a poem written by John McCrae, a Canadian doctor serving on the front lines of the western front. The poem: On Flanders Fields, spoke of poppies blowing between crosses on battlefields. Moina Michael wrote this poem in response to McCrae’s.

We cherish too, the Poppy red
That grows on fields where valor led,
It seems to signal to the skies
That blood of heroes never dies.

Michael began to sell red poppies to be worn on Memorial Day to remind people of the blood shed for their freedom. These became quite popular and Michael used the sales of the flowers to fund charities for wounded veterans. Her influence spread to Europe, where red poppies were sold to help war orphans and widows. The Veterans of Foreign Wars took up Michael’s cause and started selling red poppies in 1922 to aid veterans and their families.

The first name of the holiday was Decoration Day, which was the official name of the day until 1967, when Congress voted to change to the more popular name: Memorial Day. The term, Memorial Day, had been used in general populace lingo since the 1940s. However, Memorial Day was not officially observed as a federal holiday until 1971, when President Lyndon Johnson signed a law that moved it from May 30 to the last Monday of May. This angered several veterans groups, who claimed the three day weekend kicking off the summer took away from the solemnity of the May 30 observance.

There are some other observances that have been written into the national register as acts of Congress that are not widely known. For instance, the American flag should be flown at half-mast until noon on Memorial Day. At noon, it should be raised to full staff for the remainder of the day.

In 2000, Congress enacted a moment of silence that should be observed by all Americans at 3 p.m. on Memorial Day. They asked that all Americans stop what they are doing and bow in silence.

Every Memorial Day, either the sitting president or vice-president lays a wreath on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington National Cemetery. This is followed by a 21-minute gun salute, which is unique to this ceremony.