150 YEARS: This year marks the 150th anniversary of the modern Memorial Day commemoration in the United States.

On May 5, 1868, Major Gen. John A. Logan declared that May 30 should be observed as what was then called Decoration Day. According to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs’ Office of Public and Intergovernmental Affairs, the date was likely picked because flowers would be in bloom by then.

Gen. Logan’s order is still read today at Memorial Day ceremonies across the nation.

“It is the purpose of the commander in chief to inaugurate this observance with the hope that it will be kept up from year to year, while a survivor of the war remains to honor the memory of his departed comrades,” the order declares.

So far, so good.

A large ceremony was held that first year — just three years after the close of the Civil War — at Arlington National Cemetery.

“The ceremonies centered around the mourning-draped veranda of the Arlington mansion, once the home of Gen. Robert E. Lee,” the VA office stated in a description of the 1868 event. “Various Washington officials, including Gen. and Mrs. Ulysses S. Grant, presided over the ceremonies. After speeches, children from the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Orphan Home and members of the GAR made their way through the cemetery, strewing flowers on both Union and Confederate graves, reciting prayers and singing hymns.”

About 5,000 people attended that first ceremony — about the same number that attend the Arlington ceremony today.

On the topic of American patriotism, The Associated Press reports that today is the 75th anniversary of the day a well-known version of one patriotic symbol hit newsstands.

The AP states, “In 1943, Norman Rockwell’s portrait of ‘Rosie the Riveter’ appeared on the cover of The Saturday Evening Post. (The model for Rockwell’s Rosie, Mary Doyle Keefe, died in April 2015 at age 92.)”