Armistice Day

The eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. Armistice. This date marks the cease fire on the Western Front of World War I, 90 years ago.

Called Armistice Day in many countries, after World War II the name of the holiday was changed to Veterans Day in the United States and to Remembrance Day in the British Commonwealth. Armistice Day remains an official holiday in France and Belgium.

Remembrance Day in the UK is held on the nearest Sunday and generally known as Remembrance Sunday. A two-minute silence is observed at 11:00 am, but increasingly the two minute silence is also observed on 11 November.

Here dead we lie
Because we did not choose
To live and shame the land
From which we sprung.
Life, to be sure,
Is nothing much to lose,
But young men think it is,
And we were young.

~A E Housman

Photo from Flickr/Redvers.

5,923 graves at Hooge, of which the majority, 3,579, are of unidentified soldiers.