dreamscapesontape:

So yeah basically don’t fucking invade other countries you money-hungry capitalist idiots.

Obviously there are wars in American history that we simply should not have been involved in, but excuse me? The Civil War was fought on American soil (and it accordingly had the most casualties), and I’ve never heard World War I or World War II described (reasonably) as American imperialist wars. The other three you may judge for yourself, but to generalize all American wars as wars where they just “fucking [invaded] other countries other countries” as “money-hungry capitalist  idiots” is stupidly simplistic. 

The first Memorial Day-type commemorations were observed during and after the Civil War. In 1866, the Grand Army of the Republic organization proclaimed that May 30 of that year should be observed as Decoration Day, and by 1890, Decoration Day was an official holiday in every northern state. In 1967, Decoration Day became Memorial Day by Federal law. 

From Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr’s 1884 Memorial Day Address - In Our Youth Our Hearts Were Touched with Fire:

So to the indifferent inquirer who asks why Memorial Day is still kept up we may answer, it celebrates and solemnly reaffirms from year to year a national act of enthusiasm and faith. It embodies in the most impressive form our belief that to act with enthusiam and faith is the condition of acting greatly. To fight out a war, you must believe something and want something with all your might… More than that, you must be willing to commit yourself to a course, perhaps a long and hard one, without being able to foresee exactly where you will come out. All that is required of you is that you should go somewhither as hard as ever you can. The rest belongs to fate.

Obligatory gorgeous-art-by-Phobs post - a dying Reinhard Heydrich and his assassins. 

May 27, 1942: An assassination attempt on Reinhard Heydrich is carried out in Prague.

While serving as Acting Reich Protector of Bohemia in Moravia (in the place of Konstantin von Neurath, who he viewed as too “soft” on the Czechs), Reinhard Heydrich earned the nickname “the Butcher of Prague” for his brutal efficiency in dealing with local resistance. The Czech government-in-exile, then based in London, selected Heydrich as a target for assassination in 1941. Later that year, a British-trained group of Czechoslovak soldiers led by Jozef Gabčík and Jan Kubiš were airlifted into Czechoslovakia to carry out the assassination attempt - code-named Operation Anthropoid. 

On the morning of May 27, 1942, Heydrich was making his daily commute from the town of Panenské Břežany to Prague Castle in an open-topped car, when he was stopped by one of the Czech agents.  Gabčík fired at Heydrich, and Kubiš threw a grenade at his vehicle, launching shrapnel at the passengers; Heydrich, though injured, gave chase to the assassins before collapsing from shock. The assassins escaped believing that their attempt on Heydrich’s life had failed.

They needn’t have worried, however - Heydrich died from his injuries a week later. The subsequent retaliation on nearby villages was swift and severe, to put it lightly.

May 26, 1895: Dorothea Lange is born.

Dorothea Lange was a prominent American photographer who worked most extensively through the Great Depression, during which she photographed the unemployed and homeless for the Resettlement Administration, and later the Farm Security Administration. One of her most famous photographs - “Migrant Mother” (actually one in a series of photographs) - is one of the most iconic of that era.

During World War II, Lange was assigned by the War Relocation Authority to cover the rounding up and internment of Japanese-American - in fact, if you see a photograph of that event, it’s likely a Dorothea Lange piece. Dozens of her photographs, especially those that portrayed conditions within the camps, were impounded and censored by the U.S. government. 

Though she was a native of New Jersey, Lange spent a substantial amount of her career working in California, and in 2008, she was inducted into the California Hall of Fame, stating that “her passion for people and the art of photography left us with era-defining images of 20th century America.”