Memorial Day is a national holiday that is celebrated on the last Monday in May. Sometimes, it is called Decoration Day because following the Civil War, people went to cemeteries to place flowers on or to ''decorate'' the graves of loved ones who died in the war.
After World War I, it also became known as Poppy Day after Canadian Army Col. John McRae wrote a poem titled In Flanders Fields. The poem expresses his grief over the thousands of soldiers who died on the Flanders battlefields in Europe.
The poem describes the beautiful red poppies that grow among their graves.
After the poem was published in a magazine, Anna E. Guerin, a Frenchwoman, and Moina Michael of the United States, began making and selling artificial flowers to help children who were left orphaned or destitute because of the war. Michael contacted the Veterans of Foreign Wars for help and they began creating the flowers and helped make the poppy a universal symbol of the holiday.
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