75th Anniversary of Remembrance Day Print Page

The plaque commemorates the 75th Anniversary of Remembrance Day, and is in memory of the fallen and the Unknown Australian Soldier.  After the end of World War Two, the Australian and British governments changed the name of Armistice Day to Remembrance Day.  Armistice Day was no longer an appropriate title for a day which would commemorate all war dead.

In Australia on the 75th anniversary of the armistice in 1993, the remains of an unknown Australian soldier was exhumed from Adelaide Cemetery near Villers-Bretonneux in France and transported to Australia.   After lying in state in King's Hall in Old Parliament House, Unknown Australian Soldier was ceremonially entombed in the Hall of Memory at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra.

In 1997, Governor-General Sir William Deane issued a proclamation formally declaring 11 November to be Remembrance Day, urging all Australians to observe one minute's silence at 11 am on 11 November each year to remember those who died or suffered for Australia's cause in all wars and armed conflicts.

Armistice Day was commemorated on 11 November to mark the armistice signed between the Allies of World War One and Germany at Compiègne, France at 5:45 am,  for the cessation of hostilities on the Western Front of World War One.  It effect at eleven o'clock in the morning—the "eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month" of 1918.   The armistice initially expired after a period of 36 days and had to be extended several times. A formal peace agreement was only reached when the Treaty of Versailles was signed in June 1919.

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