Today is Veterans Day in the United States, and Google is honoring veterans with a homepage doodle.
When the user clicks, they’re presented with a query for “veterans day,” and Google’s quick answer result:
Monday, November 11 (Veterans Day 2013).
The top organic search result is from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, and gives the user a history of Veterans Day. Here’s an excerpt:
World War I – known at the time as “The Great War” – officially ended when the Treaty of Versailles was signed on June 28, 1919, in the Palace of Versailles outside the town of Versailles, France. However, fighting ceased seven months earlier when an armistice, or temporary cessation of hostilities, between the Allied nations and Germany went into effect on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. For that reason, November 11, 1918, is generally regarded as the end of “the war to end all wars.”
In November 1919, President Wilson proclaimed November 11 as the first commemoration of Armistice Day with the following words: “To us in America, the reflections of Armistice Day will be filled with solemn pride in the heroism of those who died in the country’s service and with gratitude for the victory, both because of the thing from which it has freed us and because of the opportunity it has given America to show her sympathy with peace and justice in the councils of the nations…”
Click over to read the whole story.
The second most relevant result, according to Google, is another page from the site, showing a map of community celebrations around the country.
After that, it gets into news results, the obligatory Wikipedia entry, and results from History.com and About.com.
Google first began acknowledging the day with doodles in 2007 after being criticized for not doing so in previous years. Here are three past Veterans Day doodles from Google from 2007, 2011 and 2012 respectively.
Bing is also honoring veterans with a homepage image today.
Last week, Google ran an interesting doodle celebrating the 129th birthday of psychoanalyst Hermann Rorschach. You can see more of Google’s recent doodles here.
In the UK today, Google is showing a flower on the homepage for Remembrance Day.
