November 11th, 1918 -
World War I: The fighting officially ends at 11:00 a.m., (the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month) as Germany signs an armistice agreement with the Allies in a railroad car in the forest of Compiègne, France.
Remembrance Day (also known as Poppy Day) is a memorial day observed in the Commonwealth, called Veterans Day in the U.S., is commemorated annually with two minutes of silence. The meaning behind the two minutes of silence was stated to be:
It is due to the women, who have lost and suffered and borne so much, with whom the thought is ever present.
It is due to the children that they know to whom they owe their dear fought freedom.
It is due to the men, and from them, as men.
But far and away, above all else, it is due to those who gave their all, sought no recompense, and with whom we can never re-pay - our Glorious and Immortal Dead.
- Sir Percy Fitzpatrick (November, 1919)
The red remembrance poppy has become a familiar emblem of Remembrance Day due to the poem
In Flanders Fields. These poppies bloomed across some of the worst battlefields of Flanders in World War I, their brilliant red colour became a symbol for the blood spilled in the war.
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
- Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae (May, 1915)
Translation
