Hey, hey, and welcome. This is the Ben Shapiro Show. Today show is sponsored by Express at VPN. Don't let Big Tech track what you do. Anonymize your web browsing at ExpressatVPN.com slash Ben. Well, today is, of course, Memorial Day. I thought we'd talk a little bit about what Memorial Day means. Obviously, everybody is out having a day off, and many folks are, in fact, paying attention to the nature of Memorial Day and the solemnity of the

day and what it sanctifies. And of course, what it does sanctify is Americans who have fallen

on the fields in order to make sure that America remains free, which does require us to

understand why America is free, what our freedoms are, and why those freedoms matter. And in a time

when those ideologies are under desperate attack,

both domestically and abroad,

it's important to recapitulate that the Declaration of Independence stands

for eternal and true human values

that America's freedoms that have made the world a better,

freer, and more prosperous place have been spread abroad

and protected at home by the people who died in order to do

that. Memorial Day began originally, it was first observed right after the Civil War. According to

History.com by the late 1860s, Americans in various towns and cities had begun holding springtime

tributes to countless fallen soldiers decorating their graves with flowers and reciting prayers.

It's not clear exactly when this began, but in 1966, the federal government declared that Waterloo,

New York was the official birthplace of Memorial Day. Waterloo celebrated the day on May 5, 1866.

It 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. This became Decoration Day. General James Garfield made a speech at

Arlington National Cemetery. 5,000 participants decorated the graves of the 20,000 Civil War

soldiers who were buried there. And this became very common across the United States for decades.

Memorial Day was observed on May 30th because that was the day back in 1868 that had originally been served.

But in 1968, Congress then passed the Uniform Monday Holiday Act that said that Memorial Day would be the last Monday in May.

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