State funeral

Ronald Reagan, 40th President of the United States, lies in state in the rotunda of the United States Capitol as spectators and mourners file past his flag-draped casket on June 10, 2004.

A state funeral is a public funeral ceremony where people mourn, bury, and celebrate the life of someone that was very important in their country.

With a state funeral, there is usually a day in which everyone mourns the person who died. A lot of the time, a state funeral is given to members of royal families or political leaders. People who were military or high officials or heroes, or famous for other reasons also sometimes have a state funeral.

Related pages

• Funeral
• Lying in state
• List of state funerals of former U.S. Presidents and state funeral of Nelson Mandela

Other websites

Media related to State funerals at Wikimedia Commons

• The traditions of a British state funeral
• Memorializing U.S. Presidents Archived 2004-09-09 at the Wayback Machine