At 11 a.m. on November 11, 1918, soldiers across Europe stopped fighting. Earlier that morning, German representatives signed an armistice with the Allies. The armistice, which went into effect at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, effectively ended the First World War.
A year later, President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed November 11, 1919 as a holiday honoring American soldiers who died in the war. In 1938 Congress declared Armistice Day a national holiday dedicated to world peace. After World War II, veterans proposed changing the holiday to honor not just those soldiers killed in the First World War, but all American veterans. In response to these proposals, President Dwight Eisenhower officially changed the holiday’s name to Veterans Day in 1954.
Today, Veterans Day continues annually on November 11, honoring the service of all American veterans. Similar holidays of honor take place on November 11 in the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, France, and other countries involved in World War I.
