Memorial Day is a legal holiday, observed annually on the last Monday in May in most of the United States, It honours the nation's armed services killed in wartime. The holiday, originally called Decoration Day, is traditionally marked by parades, memorial speeches and ceremonies, and the decoration of graves with flowers and flags. Memorial Day was first observed on May 30, 1868, on the order of General John Alexander Logan for the purpose of decorating the graves of the American Civil War dead. It was observed on May 30 until 1971, when most states changed to a newly established federal schedule of holiday observance.
Independence Day is an annual holiday commemorating the formal adoption by the Continental Congress of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, in Philadelphia. Although the signing of the Declaration was not completed until August, the Fourth of July holiday has been accepted as the official anniversary of United States independence and is celebrated in all states and territories of the U.S.
The Fourth of July is traditionally celebrated publicly with parades and pageants, patriotic speeches, and organised firing of guns and cannons and displays of fireworks. Family picnics and outings are a feature of private Fourth of July celebrations.
Thanksgiving Day, a legal holiday in the U.S., was first celebrated in early colonial times in New England. The actual origin is probably the harvest festivals that are traditional in many parts of the world. After the first harvest was completed by the Plymouth colonists in 1621, Governor William Bradford proclaimed a day of thanksgiving.
In 1863 President Abraham Lincoln appointed a day of thanksgiving, and since then each president has issued a Thanksgiving Day proclamation, generally designating the fourth Thursday of November as a holiday.
New Year's Day is the first day of the year, January 1 in the Gregorian calendar. In the Middle Ages most European countries used the