I forgot that yesterday was Memorial Day for our neighbours down south (usually it coincides, more or less, with our own Victoria Day weekend, but it didn't this year) ... in any event, I was semi-surprised that only one piece on Memorial Day hit my box with this rather common 'origin' story from Kingwood Now (inter alia):

The origins of special services to honor those who die in war can be found in antiquity. The Athenian leader Pericles offered a tribute to the fallen heroes of the Peloponnesian War more than 24 centuries ago that could be applied today to the 1.1 million Americans who have died in the nation's wars: "Not only are they commemorated by columns and inscriptions, but there dwells also an unwritten memorial of them, graven not on stone but in the hearts of men."