'm just going to quote da wiki here regarding Memorial Day

Memorial Day (originally known as Decoration Day[1]) is a federal holiday in the United States for mourning the U.S. military personnel who have died while serving in the United States armed forces.[2] It is observed on the last Monday of May. It was formerly observed on May 30 from 1868 to 1970.

Many people visit cemeteries and memorials on Memorial Day to honor and mourn those who died while serving in the U.S. military. Many volunteers place an American flag on graves of military personnel in national cemeteries. Memorial Day is also considered the unofficial beginning of summer in the United States.

Many cities and people have claimed to have first celebrated the event. In 1868, General John A. Logan of the Grand Army of the Republic called for a "Decoration Day", which was widely celebrated. By 1890, every Northern state had adopted it as a holiday. The World Wars turned it into a generalized day of remembrance instead of just for the Civil War. In 1971, Congress standardized the holiday as "Memorial Day" and changed its observance to the last Monday in May.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memorial_Day

Also Today,  Rafael Trujillo was assassinated.  Some say that the CIA was involved, but that seems preposterous.  True, they can be connected to the weapon, but they can be connected to an enormously vast quantity of weapons.  It really isn't their thing to do in rightist dictators, but to instead install, prop up, support, fund, and arm them, often by first overthrowing a democratically elected government, like Mossadegh's or  Allende's.  True, our first CIA president, Bush the Elder, did get rid of Noreiga, but there were special circumstances and the agency wasn't directly involved anyway.  Besides that, it was a war, not a coup or assassination or color revolution.

Bush desperately wanted to be a war president in the hopes that being one would boost his nosediving popularity.  In addition, the canal zone would "revert" to Panamanian control in the near future as such things go, and the Panamanians had to be reminded who really ran things down there.  We created Panama and could easily destroy it, you know.  Lastly there were elections coming up in Latin America, and all of the nations holding them needed to be reminded what happens to Latin American countries that dare to  elect somebody we don't like.

  

On this day in history:

1381 – The English Peasants' Revolt started.

1416 – The Council of Constance burned Jerome of Prague for heresy.

1431 – An English-dominated tribunal. burned Joan of Arc for heresy

1539 – Hernando de Soto landed at Tampa Bay  Fl with 600 soldiers in search of gold

1631 – The first French newspaper, Gazette de France, was published

1635 – The Peace of Prague was signed, converting a religious war into a secular one.

1845 – The Fatel Razack from India, landed in the Gulf of Paria in Trinidad and Tobago carrying the first Indians to that country.

1854 – The Kansas–Nebraska Act became law establishing the U.S. territories of Kansas and Nebraska, overriding the Missouri Compromise

1868 – Decoration Day (now Memorial Day) was observed in the US for the first time

1913 – The Treaty of London was signed, ending the First Balkan War

1925 – Shanghai Municipal Police Force shot and killed 13 protesting workers.

1937 – Memorial Day massacre: Chicago police shot and killed ten labor demonstrators.

1958 – The remains of two unidentified American servicemen, one each from WWII and the Korean War, were buried at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington National Cemetery.

1959 – The Auckland Harbour Bridge,was officially opened

1961 – Dominican Republic dictator Rafael Trujillo was assassinated

1967 – The Republic of Biafra declared its independence sparking a civil war.

1968 – Charles de Gaulle reappeared  and dissolved the French National Assembly;  the turning point of May 1968 events in France.

1971 – Mariner 9 was launched

1974 – The Airbus A300 passenger aircraft first entered service.

1975 – European Space Agency was established.

1990 – Croatian Parliament was constituted after the first free, multi-party elections,
 

1998 – Pakistan conducted an underground nuclear bomb test in the Kharan Desert.

2008 – Convention on Cluster Munitions was adopted by non-exceptional nations

2012 – Charles Taylor was sentenced to 50 years in prison for his role in atrocities committed during the Sierra Leone Civil War.  Proof that this can happen, even if only to the non-exceptional.

Some people who were born on this day:

“The American intellectuals, in their preoccupation with reality, seem to have forgotten that the real enemy is War rather than imperial Germany. There is work to be done to prevent this war of ours from passing into popular mythology as a holy crusade.

~~      Randolph Bourne

Please substitute "The Current Foe" for imperial Germany in the quotation above

~~     enhydra lutris

1423 – Georg von Peuerbach, mathematician and astronomer
1797 – Georg Amadeus Carl Friedrich Naumann, mineralogist and geologist
1814 – Eugène Charles Catalan, mathematician and academic
1869 – Grace Andrews, mathematician
1874 – Ernest Duchesne, physician
1886 – Randolph Bourne, theorist and author
1887 – Alexander Archipenko, sculptor and illustrator
1901 – Alfred Karindi, pianist and composer
1901 – Cornelia Otis Skinner, actress and author
1902 – Stepin Fetchit, actor and dancer
1903 – Countee Cullen, poet and author
1907 – Germaine Tillion, anthropologist and academic
1908 – Hannes Alfvén, physicist and engineer
1908 – Mel Blanc, voice actor
1909 – Benny Goodman, clarinet player, songwriter, and bandleader
1912 – Julius Axelrod, biochemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate
1912 – Millicent Selsam, author and academic
1916 – Mort Meskin, illustrator
1918 – Pita Amor, poet and author
1926 – Johnny Gimble, country/western swing musician
1927 – Joan Birman, mathematician
1928 – Pro Hart, painter
1930 – Robert Ryman, painter
1932 – Pauline Oliveros, accordion player and composer
1943 – James Chaney, civil rights activist
1944 – Lenny Davidson, guitarist and songwriter
1945 – Gladys Horton, singer
1951 – Zdravko Colic, singer and songwriter
1955 – Topper Headon, drummer and songwriter
1955 – Jacqueline McGlade, biologist, ecologist, and academic
1958 – Marie Fredriksson, singer, songwriter, and pianist
1962 – Tonya Pinkins, actress and singer
1963 – Michel Langevin, drummer and songwriter
1964 – Wynonna Judd, singer, songwriter, guitarist, and actress
1964 – Tom Morello, singer, songwriter, guitarist, and actor
1966 – Stephen Malkmus, singer, songwriter, and guitarist
1967 – Tim Burgess, singer and songwriter
1967 – Sven Pipien, bass player
1971 – Idina Menzel, singer, songwriter, and actress
1974 – CeeLo Green, singer, songwriter, pianist, producer, and actor
1975 – Brian Fair, singer and songwriter
1981 – Devendra Banhart, singer, songwriter, and guitarist
1989 – Ailee, singer and songwriter

Some people who died on this day:

“A little learning is a dangerous thing.
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian Spring;
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
and drinking largely sobers us again.”

~~     Alexander Pope

1593 – Christopher Marlowe, poet and playwright
1640 – Peter Paul Rubens, painter
1712 – Andrea Lanzani, painter
1744 – Alexander Pope, poet, essayist, and translator
1770 – François Boucher, painter and set designer
1778 – Voltaire, philosopher and author
1892 – Mary Hannah Gray Clarke, author, correspondent, and poet
1901 – Victor D'Hondt, mathematician, lawyer, and jurist
1912 – Wilbur Wright, pilot and businessman, co-founded the Wright Company 
1918 – Georgi Plekhanov, philosopher and theorist
1926 – Vladimir Steklov, mathematician and physicist
1946 – Louis Slotin, physicist and chemist
1953 – Dooley Wilson, actor and singer
1960 – Boris Pasternak, poet, novelist, and literary translator
1961 – Rafael Trujillo, soldier and murderous fascist tyrant,
1980 – Carl Radle, bass player and producer
1993 – Sun Ra, pianist, composer, and bandleader
2000 – Tex Beneke, saxophonist and bandleader
2005 – Gérald Leblanc, poet
2006 – David Lloyd, biologist and academic
2011 – Rosalyn Sussman Yalow, physicist and academic
2012 – Andrew Huxley, physiologist and biophysicist

Some Holidays, Holy Days, Festivals, Feast Days, Days of Recognition, and such:

Memorial Day (USA)
World MS Day
Anguilla Day, commemorates the beginning of the Anguillian Revolution in 1967. (Anguilla)
Canary Islands Day (Spain)
Indian Arrival Day (Trinidad and Tobago)
Statehood Day (Croatia)

Today's Tunes

Benny Goodman

Johnny Gimble

Pauline Oliveros

LennyDavidson

Gladys Horton

Zdravko Colic
https://youtu.be/IBLI7m84G4U

Topper Headon

Cee Lo Green

Peter Paul Rubens

Dooley Wilson

Carl Radle

Sun Ra

Tex Beneke

Please save Covid-19 commentary for a separate thread. Thank you.

Ok, it's an open thread, so it's up to you folks now. So what's on your mind?