Mary Shafer wrote:

On Tue, 11 Nov 2003 19:00:59 -0000, "John Mullen" wrote:

In the UK it's known as Armistice Day. The date was chosen as the
anniversary of the Armistice that ended the fighting on the Western
Front in WW1.

At 11:00 am on 11/11, which is why the Minute of Silence starts then.

I call it Armistice Day, too, because that's what it was called for
decades and it's how my parents and all the other adults I knew called
it. Ditto Decoration Day for Memorial Day, which was originally a day
to go decorate the graves of Civil War soldiers.

For the convenience of someone, maybe everyone (I don't know), the US
Congress decided to move all of the Federal Holidays except
Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's Day to the closest Monday,
giving us all three-day weekends. While this was going on, people
rose in protest and Independence Day stayed on the 4th of July and
Veterans Day stayed on 11/11, which seems only fitting to me.

Local schools (K-6 anyway) took a four-day weekend, thus giving the
kiddies two four-day weekends in November. (Teachers had to go in on
Monday, though, they called it a "teacher resource day" or something
like that.)

Things like this are the reason that school now starts the final week of
August rather than after Labor Day.

-Marc
--
Marc Reeve
actual email address after removal of 4s & spaces is
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