![Memorial Day Fast Facts](https://cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/180528185126-memorial-day-visitors-pay-their-respects-to-the-fallen-at-arlington-natl-cemetery-super-tease.jpg)
Memorial Day Fast Facts
CNN
Read CNN's Memorial Day Fast Facts to learn more about the day honoring American soldiers who died serving in wars. Observed on the last Monday in May.
Facts Several towns claim to be the originators of Memorial Day, but in 1966 Congress declared Waterloo, New York, to be the birthplace of the holiday.![](/newspic/picid-6252001-20250206034049.jpg)
The CIA has sent the White House an unclassified email listing all new hires that have been with the agency for two years or less in an effort to comply with an executive order to downsize the federal workforce, according to three sources familiar with the matter – a deeply unorthodox move that could potentially expose the identities of those officers to foreign government hackers.
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Trump administration officials are hurrying to catch up to the president’s audacious and improbable plan for the United States to take ownership of Gaza and redevelop it into a “Middle Eastern Riviera,” trying to wrap their heads around an idea that some hope might be so outlandish it forces other nations to step in with their own proposals for the Palestinian enclave.