Events on the calendar.

Midterms...Fall Break...the Great Chili Cook-off...Halloween...
We race along through the school semester and we see events written on our calendars, but how often do we stop and think about the story, the details, or the people behind the event?

Tomorrow is November 11th. We see it is written on the calendar as Veteran’s Day. In Canada and the United Kingdom they call it Remembrance Day. Some folks call it Armistice Day.

Schools close - government offices close – so what actually is Armistice Day?

World War I, known at the time as “The Great War”, officially ended when the Treaty of Versailles was signed on June 28, 1919. But the fighting had actually stopped seven months earlier when an armistice (temporary truce) between the Allied nations and Germany went into effect on the the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month.

For that reason, November 11, 1918, is generally regarded as the end of that war.

In November 1919, President Wilson proclaimed November 11 as the first commemoration of Armistice Day with the following words: "To us in America, the reflections of Armistice Day will be filled with solemn pride in the heroism of those who died in the country’s service and with gratitude for the victory, both because of the thing from which it has freed us and because of the opportunity it has given America to show her sympathy with peace and justice in the councils of the nations…"

On June 1, 1954, the 83rd Congress (at the urging of the veterans service organizations) changed the word "Armistice" to the word "Veterans." and November 11th became a day to honor American veterans of all wars.