U.S. President Barack Obama plans to honor the country's war dead by spending the Memorial Day holiday Monday with veterans and their families, as communities across the nation host their own festivities.
The president will visit the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, as well as Arlington National Cemetery just outside Washington, where soldiers have placed American flags on nearly 260,000 graves.
The first large-scale observance took place at the cemetery in 1868, three years after the bloody Civil War that killed more than 600,000 people.
The Memorial Day long weekend is seen as the start of the summer vacation season in U.S.