How Veterans Day Began?

Veterans Day has a long history. In the starting days, it had a different name, called “Armistice Day”.

Throughout this post, we will be showing you how it began and how it got the new name, step by step.

The two time periods are:

• After World War I
• And after World War II

How Veterans Day Began? – After World War I

On the 11th of November 1918, Germany signed the armistice and surrendered World War I to the allies. Of course, the three main allies were Great Britain, France, and the United States of America.

A year after, in 1919, the allies decided to celebrate victory day on the 11th of November, especially to remember and honor the World War I veterans, who fought and sacrificed their lives.

Allies including the United States named it Armistice Day. For 18 years, the US kept celebrating it the same way.

In 1938, the US Congress declared it a legal holiday throughout the country.

How Veterans Day Began? – After World War II

During World War II, 407,300 US veterans lost their lives and more than 600,000 men were wounded.

It clicked many people’s minds, one of them was Raymond Weeks, who was also a veteran of World War II.

In 1945, Raymond Weeks expressed his idea to Gen. Dwight D Eisenhower to dedicate Armistice Day to all US veterans, instead of only World War I veterans.

Eisenhower, who was already a supporter of this idea took Raymond Week’s request quite seriously.

In 1953, Eisenhower became the 34th President of the United States of America.

After that, on June 1st, 1954, under his presidency, the US Congress amended a bill and renamed Armistice Day with a new name, Veterans Day.

However, the date remained the same: the 11th of November.

Conclusion

So, this is the long history in short about Veterans Day.

I hope, now you have the answer about how Veterans Day began.

Let me know if I can help you further on this topic.