Who started vacations?

I'm headed to Curacao for a week and so I decided to do some research on the history of vacation in the United States. Who was the brilliant person who came up with this concept of sunshine and laziness. Their isn't really an answer to this. The idea evolved over time and highly religious early america had a love hate relationship with the idea. Originally vacation meant the time where teachers and students were not at school. AKA vacating the school. People would take this time to do other things, often work. By the mid 1800's people start noticing that stress is doing bad things to business men. Doctors start proscribing vacations for peoples health, only people with money can really do this though. With the dawn of the automobile and trains people start thinking about taking farther trips for themselves. Trains companies realize that they can get more business by building hotels at one end of their line. Some religious people are still worried about the idleness of vacation at this time and so some christian groups run hotels offering far fewer temptations, no smoking or drinking and so on. As transportation improved and infrastructure arose vacationing evolved into what it is today.

Where did Memorial Day come from?

The origins of Memorial Day are a little hazy, more than 20 places claim the original Memorial Day occurred in their area. They all agree that is was to honor the fallen from the civil war. In 1966, Lyndon B. Johnson and Congress declared Waterloo, New York, held the original Memorial Day on May 5^th 1866. (Notice that would have made it the centennial)  Originally called Decoration Day, Memorial Day was to honor Civil War soldiers by decorating their graves. Some places in the South used the day to honor confederate soldiers specifically, or held a separate day just for them, but it was more widely used to honor soldiers from both sides. Virginia still calls the last Monday in May “Confederate Memorial Day”. Some time after World War I the day was extended to honor soldiers from all wars. In 1971, the day was declared as a national holiday. Why the last Monday in May? Many people suspect this date was chosen because flowers would be blooming all over the United States. In 2000, congress created an act encouraging all Americans “to pause at 3:00 pm on Memorial Day and hold a minute of silence to remember and honor those who have died in service to the nation.”

http://www.va.gov/opa/speceven/memday/history.asp?utm_source=3birds&utm_medium=Web&utm_campaign=AUBURNVW_Fun+Facts+About+Memorial+Day