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By THE PULSE NEWS MEXICO STAFF    

Today marks the 100th anniversary of the official end of World War I.

On the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918, the armistice between the Allied Forces and Germany went into effect to end what had been dubbed “the war to end all wars.”

One year later, then-U.S. President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed that on Nov. 11, 1919, the people of the United States would pause to reflect on Armistice Day, and remember with “solemn pride” the uncompromised heroism of the men and women who had served their country during the Great War.

The original holiday was marked by parades and public meetings, as well as a brief cessation of work starting as 11 a.m.

In 1938, the United States Congress officially sanctioned Nov. 11 as a national holiday, and since then, Veteran’s Day, as it eventually came to be known, has been set aside throughout the United States to honor all American veterans for the sacrifice and service.

Unlike Memorial Day, which honors the dead, Veteran’s Day pays tribute to all those who have served their nation’s causes with military service.

The day is also observed by the British and Commonwealth community as Remembrance Day, often with the wearing of a red poppy in deference to the poem “In Flanders Fields,” written by the Canadian physician Lt. Col. John McCrea about how poppy flowers bloomed across with worst battlefields of Flanders after the war.