On Remembrance Day, we’re looking back on the occasion and how it has been marked over the years.
This is a day to honour the sacrifices made by British military servicemen and women in the First and Second World Wars and subsequent conflicts. Every year, a two-minute silence is observed at 11am on November 11. It is also known as Poppy Day or Armistice Day in the UK and many other countries.
While Remembrance Day is not a public holiday in the UK, most people stop what they are doing and remain silent to pay their respects to the dead.
Remembrance Sunday is observed on the second Sunday of November, when the National Service of Remembrance is held at the Cenotaph at Whitehall.
Originally known as Armistice Day, Remembrance Day was first observed on November 11, 1919, exactly a year after the First World War came to an end and a peace treaty or armistice was signed between Germany and the allied powers.
On May 8, 1919, Edward George Honey, an Australian journalist, suggested the observance of a five-minute silence for all those who sacrificed their lives in the war. King George V learned about it on November 7, 1919 and made it official four days later. However, instead of five minutes, he chose the observance of a two-minute silence.
The bright red poppy is the official symbol of Remembrance Day in many countries, including the United Kingdom.
During the First World War, much of Western Europe was destroyed and rich and cultivable lands turned barren and unfit for growth. Among such depressing scenes, the Flanders poppy or common poppy continued to flourish.
An American professor named Moina Michael became very inspired by this and proposed to use it as an official symbol for Remembrance Day in the US as well as in other countries such as the UK, Canada and Australia.
Every year, the Royal British Legion holds a fundraising drive in the weeks before Remembrance Sunday in which it offers wearable artificial poppies in return for a donation.
In 2018, the poppy artwork Weeping Window by artist Paul Cummins and designer Tom Piper arrived at Carlisle Castle as part of UK-wide tour to mark the centenary of the armistice.
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