11-11-11

November 11 was originally called Armistice Day because it was on this
day in 1918 that the First World War came to an end. The
armistice was signed at 11:00 AM, on the eleventh hour of the eleventh
day of the eleventh month of the year. After four years of brutal
trench fighting, nine million soldiers had died and 21 million were
wounded. It was called "The War to End All Wars," because it was the
bloodiest war in history up to that point, and it made many people so
sick of war that they hoped no war would ever break out again.


Many intellectuals and artists were disillusioned by the war. The
philosopher Bertrand Russell said, "All this madness, all this rage,
all this flaming death of our civilization and our hopes, has been
brought about because a set of official gentlemen, living luxurious
lives, mostly stupid, and all without imagination or heart, have
chosen that it should occur rather than that any one of them should
suffer some infinitesimal rebuff to his country's pride."