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Memorial Day Salute, Minnesota, 2000

A Veterans of Foreign Wars honor guard stands at attention for a three-round salute in honor of Memorial Day.

First widely observed in 1868, Decoration Day, as it was originally known, was a time to honor fallen Civil War soldiers by decorating their graves. In 1971, the U.S. Congress made Memorial Day a national holiday honoring all Americans who have died in service to their country.

(Photograph shot on assignment for, but not published in, "In Search of Lake Wobegon," December 2000, National Geographic magazine)

Photograph by Richard Olsenius