Anniversaries+in+History

=__**Important Anniversaries in History- Lest we Forget**__=

With Veterans Day coming up on Tuesday we will pause and thank our Veterans once again with a short observance in class that explores the military perspective from the point of view of our World War II generation. However, as you will learn, Veterans Day is not just a random date chosen for thanking Veterans. The date is a very specific one for an important reason.

Veterans Day is always November 11th, because that is the day that the Armistice (Cease Fire) agreement ended the fighting on the Western Front in World War I and set the stage for the peace talks that ended the war. By agreement at 11am on November 11th... so- 11 am on 11/11, 1918 the guns fell silent in the most horrific war every experienced in human history up to that point. It was hoped to be the "War to end all wars..." though of course it wasn't. All the allied powers in World War I made the day a holiday, to remember the cost of war in hopes of inspiring future generations to choose peace. It is still celebrated in Canada and England as Remembrance Day, and in France and Belgium as Armistice Day. 2014 is the 100th anniversary of the start of World War I.

2014 is the 150th Anniversary of Lincoln's Re-election to his 2nd term during the Civil War. It is the 70th anniversary of the DDay landings in Normandy in World War II. Sunday, November 9th was the 25th anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall. We have already observed 9/11... and on 28 August we observed the anniversary of Martin Luther King's I Have a Dream Speech which he delivered at the Lincoln Memorial during the Civil Rights March on Washington D.C.

__**What other dates do we remember every year? What other anniversary dates should we stop and reflect upon?**__ Talk with your parents and grandparents. Every generation has it's can't forget- Remember where you were when moments.

//**I was in my 2nd year of teaching when the Berlin Wall fell. I had visited it when I lived in Europe during college. I was in the army at the time, and our training was designed to prepare us to fight to defend West Berlin and Western Europe from the Soviet Union. In my life, the Cold War, symbolized by the Berlin Wall, had always been there. When it fell, and was allowed to be torn down while East German security forces just watched- my world changed for the better. At that moment I experienced more hope for the world than I ever had before, or ever have since. Do you remember seeing that piece of the Berlin Wall in the Price of Freedom exhibit at the American History Museum? Did you watch the video on the Google home screen on Sunday? PFrankmann**//