Remembrance Day
Next: November 11, 2026
At the eleventh hour, we remember.
The story
Where it comes from
The guns of the First World War fell silent at 11 am on 11 November 1918, when the Armistice signed that morning in a railway carriage in the Forest of Compiègne came into force. A year later King George V asked for two minutes of silence at that hour, and the day has been kept ever since. It goes by different names: Remembrance Day in Canada, Britain and Australia, Armistice Day in France, and Veterans Day in the United States, where it honours everyone who has served.
How it's celebrated
This is a day of remembrance rather than celebration. People pause in silence at 11 am, for two minutes in Britain and Canada and one minute in Australia, and wreaths are laid at war memorials. Many wear a red poppy; in France the symbol is the blue cornflower, the bleuet. In Britain the main national service is held on Remembrance Sunday, the second Sunday of November.
Did you know
- The poppy comes from 'In Flanders Fields', written on 3 May 1915 by the Canadian doctor John McCrae, the day after a close friend was killed at Ypres.
- The United States renamed Armistice Day as Veterans Day in 1954, so that it would honour American veterans of all wars.
- In Singapore, a Remembrance Sunday service is held each November at Kranji War Cemetery, where the Singapore Memorial bears the names of more than 24,000 Commonwealth service personnel who have no known grave.
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