Arlington National Cemetery | Temporary Resting Place of late Philippine President Manuel L. Quezon 

Arlington National Cemetery | Temporary Resting Place of late Philippine President Manuel L. Quezon
Arlington National Cemetery is a United States military cemetery in Arlington County, Virginia, across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C., in whose 639 acres. The dead of the nation's conflicts have been buried, beginning with the Civil War, as well as reinterred dead from earlier wars.
and also Arlington National Cemetery is a temporary resting place of late Philippine President Manuel L. Quezon
George Washington Parke Custis, grandson of Martha Washington and adopted son of George Washington, acquired the land that now is Arlington National Cemetery in 1802, and began construction of Arlington House, which was ultimately named after the village of Arlington, Gloucestershire, England, where his family was originally from. The estate passed to Custis's daughter, Mary Anna, who had married United States Army officer Robert E. Lee. Custis's will gave a "life inheritance" to Mary Lee, allowing her to live at and run Arlington Estate for the rest of her life but not enabling her to sell any portion of it. Upon her death, the Arlington estate passed to her eldest son, George Washington Custis Lee.
Robert Edward Lee was a Confederate general best known for his service to the Confederate States of America during the American Civil War, during which he was appointed the overall commander of the Confederate States Army.
When Virginia seceded from the Union after the start of the American Civil War at Fort Sumter, Robert E. Lee resigned his commission on April 20, 1861, and took command of the armed forces of the Commonwealth of Virginia, later becoming commander of the Army of Northern Virginia. On May 7, troops of the Virginia militia occupied Arlington and Arlington House. With Confederate forces occupying Arlington's high ground, the capital of the Union was left in an untenable military position. On May 3, General Winfield Scott ordered Brigadier General Irvin McDowell to clear Arlington and the city of Alexandria, Virginia, of all troops not loyal to the United States.
At the outbreak of the Civil War, most military personnel who died in battle near Washington, D.C., were buried at the United States Soldiers' Cemetery in Washington, D.C., or Alexandria Cemetery in Alexandria, Virginia, but by late 1863 both were nearly full. On July 16, 1862, Congress passed legislation authorizing the U.S. federal government to purchase land for national cemeteries for military dead. In May 1864, Union forces suffered large numbers of dead in the Battle of the Wilderness. Quartermaster General Montgomery C. Meigs ordered that an examination of eligible sites be made for the establishment for a large new national military cemetery.
Beginning in 1863, the federal government used the southern portion of the land now occupied by the cemetery as a settlement for freed slaves, giving the name of "Freedman's Village" to the land. The government constructed rental houses that 1,100 to 3,000 freed slaves eventually occupied while farming 1,100 acres (450 ha) of the estate and receiving schooling and occupational training during the Civil War and after War ended.
However, after the land became part of a military reservation, the government asked the Villagers to leave. When some remained, John A. Commerford, the Superintendent of Arlington National Cemetery, asked the Army's Quartermaster General in 1887 to close the Village on the grounds that people living in the Village had been taking trees at night from the cemetery for use as firewood.
With limited space but large numbers of World War II, Korean War, Vietnam War, and other veterans dying and wanting to be buried at Arlington, the need for additional burial space at the cemetery became a pressing issue. In 1991, Cemetery superintendent John C. Metzler, Jr., implemented a $1.4 million plan to clear a former 13-acre (5.3 ha) parking lot to create space for about 9,000 new grave sites.
In 1992, the Morrill Worcester wreath company in Harrington, Maine, had a surplus at the end of the holiday season. Recalling a boyhood trip to the cemetery, Worcester donated 5,000 wreaths to the cemetery to honor the cemetery's dead, with the help of volunteers and a local trucking company. After thirteen years of similar donations, in 2005 a photo of snowy gravestones covered with wreaths at the cemetery received widespread circulation on the internet. Thousands of people called Worcester, wanting to replicate the wreath-laying service at their own veteran cemeteries.
The Tomb of the Unknowns is part of the Arlington Memorial Amphitheater. The Memorial Amphitheater has hosted state funerals and Memorial Day and Veterans Day ceremonies. Ceremonies are also held for Easter. About 5,000 people attend these holiday ceremonies each year.
SOURCE: WIKIPEDIA