[originaltext] Memorial Day honors those who died in all of America’ s wars.

Memorial Day honors those who died in all of America’ s wars. But the holiday began as a way to honor soldiers killed during the Civil War between the North and the South. On May thirtieth, eighteen sixty-eight, flowers were placed on the graves of Union and Confederate soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery. Today, more than two hundred sixty thousand men and women are buried there. Some fought in the Revolutionary War in the seventeen hundreds. The eighty-hectare cemetery is in Arlington, Virginia, across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C. Others buried at Arlington National Cemetery include government officials and Supreme Court justices. Presidents John F. Kennedy and William Howard Taft are buried there.