Wednesday, November 11, 2015

Why is November 11 Veterans Day?

The date of this holiday goes back to the end of World War I. In 1918 the hostilities ended on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month.

President Wilson declared it Armistice Day the following year, and it later became Veterans Day after subsequent wars.

I found this video on YouTube with the following description..."This is the oldest known radio aircheck or linecheck of an American president. The recording was made by Washington DC electronics engineer Frank L. Capps, using a homemade electrical recording system, two years before the first electrically recorded commercial disk was released by Victor. The original disk is believed lost, but a copy is in the FDR presidential library. The newsreel footage comes from archive.org. Both are in the public domain. Listen carefully and you will hear the former president knock the microphone. Mr. Wilson made this address over an ad hoc radio network and was heard by thousands of early radio listeners."