Remembering The 100th Anniversary of Armistice Day

This weekend, the world celebrates the 100th anniversary of what is now known as Veterans Day.

Robert: Cease fire will begin at eleven o'clock on the morning of the eleventh of November.
Mrs. Patmore: Why can't it begin now?
Thomas: The eleventh of the eleventh seem pretty tidy to me.

Here in America, awareness of Veterans Day rises and falls with the country's war status. Currently, it is mostly used to mark the continuation of the Iraq War, and to thank those who still go overseas for their service. But the military remembrance day is actually a legacy of the first World War, and the date springs from the decision by the European powers-that-be to call a cease-fire at 11:11 a.m. on 11/11/1918.

Americans didn't lose that many in the war - relative to the European powers - partly because we didn't enter until the 11th hour anyway. (And it speaks volumes that 116,708 U.S. dead is a relatively minor body count in the scheme of things.) So it's not surprising that over the century between then and now, the date has slowly reappropriated itself in this country to whatever war is at hand, from World War II to Vietnam to today. But in the U.K., and all over Europe for that matter, November 11th has remained Remembrance Day, and it maintains its World War I roots. Poppies, the symbol of the Great War, have never gone out of fashion. There are no World War I veterans currently still living, but the corpses of the European monarchy system and the British Empire are still there for all to see, and it makes it very hard to forget.