November 11

Featured Article

Today is Remembrance Day.

At the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of the year 1918, the First World War came to an end as Germany signed the armistice with the Allied Powers.

It remains, throughout the free world, a day to pause and reflect and honor the sacrifice of those who serve their countries in the times of most dire need.

At eleven o'clock, where will you be?

Lest We Forget

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With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,
England mourns for her dead across the sea.
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,
Fallen in the cause of the free.

Solemn the drums thrill; Death august and royal
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres,
There is music in the midst of desolation
And a glory that shines upon our tears.

They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted;
They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years contemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;
They sit no more at familiar tables of home;
They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;
They sleep beyond England's foam.

But where our desires are and our hopes profound,
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
As the stars are known to the Night;

As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain;
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.

-For The Fallen

[more] What else happened today

1895 — The Lee-Enfield rifle was introduced as the .303 calibre, Rifle, Magazine, Lee-Enfield, or more commonly simply Magazine Lee-Enfield, or MLE (sometimes spoken as "emily" instead of M, L, E). 1938 — Immediately after the infamous Kristallnacht, German Minister of the Interior Wilhelm Frick passes Regulations Against Jews' Possession of Weapons, effectively depriving Jews of the right to possess firearms or other personal weapons for self-defense. This was possible under the 1938 German Weapons Act, passed earlier in the year, which restricted ownership of firearms to "persons whose trustworthiness is not in question."

Today in pictures

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  2006: Poppies are laid on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier on Remembrance Day in Ottawa.

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  RCAC cadet at Remembrance ceremony in 2009.