USA

UK, US Honor Members of Armed Forces

Veterans from the Oman Trucial Scouts process during the service of remembrance at the Cenotaph in Whitehall, London, Sunday, Nov. 10, 2013.

U.S. President Barack Obama will join millions of Americans in observing the annual Veterans Day holiday on Monday.

Obama will host a breakfast at the White House for a group of military veterans and their families, and will later participate in a traditional wreath laying ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery.

The holiday was first observed in the United States in 1919 as Armistice Day, marking the day one year earlier, November 11, 1918, when the U.S. and its allies reached a formal agreement with Germany to end World War One.

Members of American Legion Post 9, and VFW Post 9388 fire a 21-gun salute during a flag retirement ceremony, Sunday, Nov. 10, 2013, in front of the USS LST 393 Veterans Museum in Muskegon, Michigan.


In the aftermath of World War Two and the Korean War, the holiday was renamed Veterans Day in 1954 to honor American veterans of all wars.

Across the Atlantic, Queen Elizabeth led Britain in paying tribute to its war dead as the country fell silent on Remembrance Sunday.

Thousands in central London observed a two-minute silence during the annual ceremony, which is observed on the nearest Sunday to the anniversary of the end of World War I.