Buddha’s Birthday
On Sunday, May 3, many people in India will celebrate the birth date of Gautama Buddha. Buddha was a spiritual teacher whose teachings are the basis for the Buddhist religion.
While no one is certain of the exact date and time of his death, most historians believe that he lived between 563 and 483 B.C. Most people consider Lumbini, Nepal as his birth place. He died at the age of 80 at Kushinagar, Uttar Pradesh.
Mother’s Day
Every May you have the opportunity to celebrate your mom. This year, that day is on May 10. Mother’s Day was established on May 9, 1914. President Woodrow Wilson issued a Presidential Proclamation urging people to make a public expression of the love they have for their mothers. Carnations have come to represent the day as they were distributed at one of the first commemorations honoring mothers. The idea came from Anna Reeves Jarvis, a woman from West Virginia, who started a campaign to honor mothers following the death of her own mother.
Memorial Day
Three years after the Civil War ended, on May 5, 1868, the head of an organization of Union veterans established Decoration Day as a time for the nation to decorate the graves of the war dead with flowers. Maj. Gen. John A. Logan declared that Decoration Day should be observed on May 30. It is believed that date was chosen because flowers would be in bloom all over the country. The first large observance was held that year at Arlington National Cemetery across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C. By the end of the 19th century, Memorial Day ceremonies were being held on May 30 throughout the nation. State legislatures passed proclamations designating the day, and the Army and Navy adopted regulations for proper observance at their facilities.
It was not until after World War I, however, that the day was expanded to honor those who have died in all American wars. In 1971, Memorial Day was declared a national holiday by an act of Congress, though it is still often called Decoration Day. It was then also placed on the last Monday in May.
