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Today, the world over, memorials commemorate the war dead of every country, every conflict; soldiers and civilians alike.

In Canada, Remembrance Day is a legal holiday. We pay our respects with two minutes of silence at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month. The observance in Commonwealth countries officially began in 1919 after the end of the First World War in 1918. The two minutes of silence on the elevens symbolizes the armistice, effective at 11 a.m. on 11 November, 1918.

Next year the world will begin to mark all the centenaries of the First World War -- the terrible global conflict which took the lives of nearly 10 million soldiers and untold numbers of civilians, and, gave birth to some of the greatest political (read human) problems of the 20th Century.