Memorial Day: Gold star families, US Navy and Air Force remembers lives lost | LiveNOW from FOX

America’s first Memorial Day observance was on May 5, 1868, which was originally called Decoration Day by the Grand Army of the Republic, according to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. That year, Americans visited Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia and other local resting places throughout the U.S. to decorate the graves of fallen troops. The Civil War ended three years prior (April 12, 1861, to April 9, 1865), and an estimated 620,000 people lost their lives in the conflict.

President Lyndon B. Johnson proclaimed Waterloo, New York, the "birthplace of Memorial Day" on May 26, 1966.

Records show the village held one of the first observances on the local level 100 years earlier, according to the Library of Congress. Johnson’s proclamation was made during the Vietnam War, which had been fought for 11 years at that point. The Vietnam War ran from Nov. 1, 1955, to April 30, 1975.

Memorial Day became a floating federal holiday on Jan. 1, 1971, after the Uniform Monday Holiday Act went into effect, according to the U.S. Army Center of Military History.

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs published an "America’s Wars" report in May 2021 that estimated the number of fallen troops who died in battle from 1775 to 1991 was 651,031.

Approximately 1.3 million active-duty service members make up the U.S. armed forces, according to USAFacts.org, as of April 2024.

The agency is also backed by 778,000-plus civilian personnel and more than 767,000 National Guard and Reserve service members.

The law moved Memorial Day from May 30 to the last Monday in May.

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