Event:Armistice Day 2019

Q72736224

This leaf is part of the Event Spore on Wikispore, our current events project.

Date of event: November 11 2019

It serves as a compendium of this event in time, drawing on a variety of journalistic and other sources. For occasions such as international observances, it covers related events globally.

Armistice Day 2019 is the 101st anniversary of Armistice Day, the cessation of hostilities on the Western Front of World War I, which took effect at eleven o'clock in the morning—the "eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month" of 1918.

Gassed, a 1919 painting by John Singer Sargent in the Imperial War Museum, London. Wikimedia Commons' picture of the day for November 11, 2019.

The commemoration has different names and focuses in different countries, including in the Commonwealth of Nations as Remembrance Day and in the United States as Veterans Day.

This event comes a year after the conclusion of the First World War centenary in 2018, which included major commemorations including a gathering of world leaders at the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. The year 2019 can also be considered the centerary of Armstice Day as a ceremonial anniversary, given that its observance actually began on the first anniversary in 1919. It can also be considered as year to commemorate in general the aftermath of World War I.

Wiki Meta-Commentary

English Wikipedia has three relevant featured articles in November 2019:

• November 10: Mary Bell (aviator) (Australia starts its day earlier)
• November 11: Northampton War Memorial
• November 12: Operation Catechism

English Wikipedia has two selected annniversaries for November 11 listed as holidays: National Independence Day in Poland (1918); Anniversary of the Armistice of 11 November 1918 (signatories pictured). The armistice is also a selected anniversary on French, Spanish, German and Arabic, etc.

Wikimedia Commons' picture of the day for November 11 is the painting Gassed by John Singer Sargent, in the collection of the Imperial War Museum.

The Veterans Day article was the first search result from Google Doodle in the United States for the last several years, with hundreds of thousands of pageviews.

On the English Wikipedia vital articles system, World War I is considered a Level 3 in terms of priority for having a quality article on this topic, and Armistice Day a Level 5.

Americas

In the US, Armistice Day is commemorated as Veterans Day.

There are a number of commemoration in Washington, DC. The National Tribute to Veterans at the Washington National Cathedral will be on November 10. Ceremonies will be held starting at the National World War II Memorial at 9am, the Arlington National Cemetery at 11am (with a prelude by the United States Army Band a half-hour earlier), the United States Navy Memorial at 1pm, and also the Vietnam Veterans Memorial at 1pm. The DC LGBT Center is this year honoring the memory of wikipedia:Leonard Matlovich at Congressional Cemetery starting at 12pm.

In New York City, the Veterans Day Parade in New York City, the largest in the country, is marking its 100th anniversary this year, and will start at 1pm. Grand Marshals this year Hiroshi “Hershey” Miyamura (U.S. Army, Korea), Eddie Ray (U.S. Marine Corps, Desert Storm), Herschel “Woody” Williams (U.S. Marine Corps, World War II), Zach Iscol (U.S. Marine Corps, Post-9/11) and Former Senator Bob Kerrey (U.S. Navy, Vietnam War). David H. Berger will be Honorary Grand Marshall. President Trump is speaking at the rally beforehand in Madison Square Park, the first US president to do so.

The US Department of Veterans Affairs recognizes a select list of regional observances each year through the Veterans Day National Committee.

Veterans Day this year will also be the occasion for a Free Entrance Day at national parks across the United States.

President Trump declared November as National Veterans and Military Families Month, as he has in previous years.

Culturally, Hollywood is releasing the World War II film Midway for Veterans Day Weekend.

In Canada, there was a school prayer controversy over the use of A Prayer for People of Courage at a school in Sydney Mines, Cape Breton. An editorial by Maclean's advocated making the day a nationwide statutory holiday, a suggestion that has been rejected in the past by veterans' groups because it would prevent observance in the schools. Ice hockey commentator Don Cherry was fired after comments suggesting Canadian immigrants are insufficiently patriotic and do not wear remembrance poppies.

Europe

In the UK, Remembrance Sunday is November 10, this year, a day before Remembrance Day. Local UK parades have come under pressure for being cancelled or scaled back in Worcestershire, Cheshire, Lancashire and Staffordshire. It is the centenary of public commemorations in the UK and of the two-minute silence. The Conservative Party, Labour Party and Liberal Democrats have proposed reforms to the Service Personnel and Veterans Agency during the first election season race since the 1923 United Kingdom general election. The Conservatives supporting a change in the Human Rights Act so that it will no longer apply to actions before that law came into effect in the year 2000, The Troubles, at a time when several historic cases are pending before the Public Prosecution Service for Northern Ireland including for Bloody Sunday.

The Royal Family and others paid tribute during the National Service of Remembrance at the The Cenotaph in London, which included the first apearance by the Nepalese ambassador to honor the Brigade of Gurkhas.

The Remembrance Lecture at the Imperial War Museum this year is Culture Under Attack: Who Decides What’s Worth Saving? on looted art and evacuated art during wartime.

In Poland, the anniversary is observed as National Independence Day, as the end of World War I made restoration of sovereignty as the Second Polish Republic possible.

Online campaigns

Twitter is launching a hashflag with a custom remembrance poppy emoji for Remembrance Day's Poppy Appeal, active from November 1-15, in cooperation with the Royal British Legion, Poppyscotland, the Royal Canadian Legion and the Returned and Services League of Australia.