Cnn
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President Donald Trump announced Thursday that he wanted to rename the Veterans Day, a federal holiday on November 11, at the “Victory Day for the First World War” in order to “start again to celebrate our victories”.
He also said that he wanted to celebrate May 8, which is not a federal holiday, as “Victory Day for the Second World War”.
“We won the two wars, nobody was close to us in terms of strength, bravery or military brilliance, but we never celebrate anything – it is because we no longer have leaders, who know how to do it!” Trump posted on Truth Social Thursday evening.
Trump did not say if he wanted May 8 to become a federal holiday, like veterans’ day.
All the federal holidays were created by acts of the congress, but the states are not required to join it, according to the Congressional Research Service.
Veterans Day was born as a commemoration of the end of the fighting during the First World War, which occurred on November 11, 1918. But even then, it was not presented as a celebration of an American victory.
The Congress initially adopted a law in 1938 that November 11 would be the day of the armistice, “a day to devote to the cause of world peace” and the honor of veterans of the First World War, according to the American department of veterans.
After the United States’s participation in the Second World War and the Korean War in the 1940s and in the early 1950s, the veterans groups asked the Congress to change the day of the Armistice to the day of veterans to devote the day to honor all American veterans. This legislation became law in 1954.
Currently, veterans’ day is a day to honor veterans of all American wars, including modern wars in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. Trump’s social media’s publication made no mention of how he could honor the veterans of these conflicts.
Another federal celebration, Memorial Day, is celebrated on the last Monday in May to honor those who gave their lives in the name of the country. It was initially created by the Congress in 1888 as the day of decoration, holidays for federal workers in the District of Columbia and a day so that the tombs of the veterans of the civil war are decorated, but become more commonly known by the Memorial Day and were proclaimed from federal holidays in 1968.
Regarding Trump’s idea to make May 8 “Victory Day for the Second World War”, the timing of the American president is shifted by three months.
While on May 8, 1945, represents the end of the war in Europe, also known as Ve Day, the fighting continued in the Pacific for three additional months, which included the atomic attacks of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan.
“Many of our allies and friends celebrate on May 8 as a victory day, but we have done more than any other country by far, producing a victorious result on the Second World War,” said Trump on social media.
Historians, however, called on September 2, 1945, the day when Japan signed surrender documents on the battleship Uss Missouri in Tokyo Bay as a day and the official end of the Second World War.