The end of WWI. To be fair, the armistice was agreed at 5:10am on the 11th of November to come into effect at 11am. The original armistice was for a period of 36 days, after which it had to be renewed, and was done four times before the Treaty of Versailles was signed. The war did not stop at 11am on 11 November. But we remember.
There is THIS story of why, but according to tales, this is just one version. The most common answer: poppies are the flowers which grew on the battlefields after World War One ended. This is described in the famous World War One poem In Flanders Fields.
In Flanders Fields
by John McCrae, May 1915
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
When a fallen soldier returns home, under the shroud of the American flag, the dead are just the dead. There is no race, rank… no age, gender, sexual orientation, religion, political affiliation, level of education, money. …in the end they are wept upon. They died for the belief and promise of freedom.
We don’t know their stories. We know their sacrifice. I remember.
In my time… I remember my friends who signed up after 9/11. I remember them coming home. They’re still coming home. They are still deploying. They are under heavy stones. They still fight. So we remain grateful.
In the United States, the Veterans of Foreign Wars conducted the first nationwide distribution of remembrance poppies before Memorial Day in 1922. Today, the American Legion Auxiliary distributes crepe-paper poppies in exchange for donations around Memorial Day and Veterans Day. But me? I always wear my poppy and I always remember.