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Event
Information:
Memorial Day is a United States
federal holiday honors soldiers and
is observed on the last Monday of
May. Formerly known
as Decoration Day, it commemorates
U.S. soldiers who died while in the
military service. First enacted to
honor Union and Confederate soldiers
following the American Civil War, it
was extended after World War I to
honor Americans who have died in all
wars. As the nations' capital city,
Washington DC hosts an annual
Memorial Cay parade each year on the
National Mall.
The
National Mall is an open-area
national park in downtown
Washington, D.C., the capital of the
United States. The National Mall is
a unit of the National Park Service
(NPS), and is administered by the
National Mall and Memorial Parks
unit. The term "National Mall"
commonly includes areas that are
officially part of West Potomac Park
and Constitution Gardens to the
west, and often is taken to refer to
the entire area between the Lincoln
Memorial and the United States
Capitol, with the Washington
Monument providing a division
slightly west of the center. The
National Mall receives approximately
24 million visitors each year.
The
National Mall, in combination with
the other attractions in the
Washington Metropolitan Area, makes
the nation's capital city one of the
most popular tourist destinations in
the country. However, it has uses
other than as a tourist focal point.
The official boundaries of the
National Mall (National Mall proper)
are Constitution and Pennsylvania
Avenues on the north, 1st Street, NW
on the east, Independence and
Maryland Avenues on the south, and
14th Street, NW on the west, with
the exception of the section of land
bordered by Jefferson Drive on the
north, Independence Avenue on the
south, and by 12th and 14th Streets
respectively on the east and west,
which the U.S. Department of
Agriculture administers and which
contains the Jamie L. Whitten
Building (U.S. Department of
Agriculture Administration
Building). However, people often
consider areas outside of these
boundaries to be part of the Mall.
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