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Google Doodle goes dark to mark Memorial Day

Doodle includes an invitation to pause for one minute of silence this afternoon's National Day of Remembrance.

Steven Musil Night Editor / News
Steven Musil is the night news editor at CNET News. He's been hooked on tech since learning BASIC in the late '70s. When not cleaning up after his daughter and son, Steven can be found pedaling around the San Francisco Bay Area. Before joining CNET in 2000, Steven spent 10 years at various Bay Area newspapers.
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Google honors members of the US military who died in service of their country.

Google

Google frequently replaces its Doodle with colorful graphics to highlight important events and holidays or honor the contributions of notable people. On Monday, it took a more somber approach to mark Memorial Day, publishing a gray Doodle to remember the brave men and women who died while serving in the US armed forces.

To honor the soldiers' sacrifices, people visit national cemeteries and memorials, decorating graves with an American flag. Memorial Day was declared a federal holiday in 1971, but its roots stretch back to the Civil War, when annual decoration days would see graves adorned with flowers.

Google's search page includes the image of a folded American flag and an invitation to observe the National Day of Remembrance at 3 p.m. local time. In the act of national unity, participants pause for one minute of silence to honor those who died in the service of the US.

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The day is often confused with Veterans Day, another day that celebrates the US military, writes Nick Ralston, lead of the Google Veterans Network and a former Marine.

"The more you learn or the closer you are to its true meaning, the harder it is to balance the prescribed celebration with the sadness and solemnity of the sacrifices by the fallen men and women who are remembered on this day," Ralston writes in a company blog post.

"But that's the point: Remembrance."

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