November 11, formerly observed in the United States in commemoration of the signing of the armistice ending World
War I in 1918. Since 1954 it has been incorporated into the observances of Veterans Day.
--
American Heritage
Dictionary, 4th Edition
EXAMPLE:
"So this book is a sidewalk strewn with junk, trash which I throw over my shoulders as I travel in time back to
November eleventh, nineteen hundred and twenty-two.
"I will come to a time in my backwards trip when
November eleventh, accidentally my
birthday, was a sacred day called Armistice Day. When I was a boy . . . all the
people of all the nations which had fought in the First World
War were silent during the eleventh minute of the eleventh hour of Armistice Day, which was the eleventh day of the eleventh month.
"It was during that minute in nineteen hundred and eighteen, that millions upon millions of human beings stopped butchering one another. I have talked to old
men who were on battlefields during that minute. They have told me in one way or another that the sudden silence was the voice of God. So we still have among
us some
men who can remember when God spoke clearly to mankind.
"Armistice Day has become Veterans' Day. Armistice Day was sacred. Veterans' Day is not.
"So I will throw Veterans' Day over my shoulder. Armistice Day I will keep. I don't want to throw away any sacred things.
"What else is sacred? Oh, "Romeo and Juliet", for instance.
"And all
music is."
-- From Kurt Vonnegut's 1973 novel "Breakfast of Champions" -- Preface (page 6).
