This poster has been created to commemorate Anzac Day in 2022. Proudly display our poster to help remember and recognise all those who lost their lives in wars, conflicts, peacekeeping operations and humanitarian efforts around the world.
Wartime snapshot
Australians commemorated the first Anzac Day on 25 April 1916, which was 12 months after the first landings on Gallipoli. The anniversary has been observed every year since. With few exceptions – when Australians felt themselves threatened by invasion in 1942 and during the COVID-19 pandemic of more recent years – Anzac Day commemorations have always included a publicly attended dawn service and march. In other respects, the day's form has varied through decades of war, depression and social change.
During its first 20 years, Anzac Day was solely dedicated to commemorating the Australian Imperial Force (AIF), Australia's volunteer army raised for World War I. A second global war revived and reshaped the Anzac story, which now honoured 2 generations of service personnel. Since 1945, new chapters have been added as Australians have served in wars, conflicts and peacekeeping operations around the world.
In some eras, it has seemed that Anzac Day might fade. During the latter part of the 1960s as the war in Vietnam became increasingly unpopular, so did occasions associated with the military. Many felt that Anzac Day was becoming irrelevant. Instead, it underwent a resurgence. As World War I veterans entered old age, their wartime experiences became the subject of scholarly and popular literature, television shows and films, changing people's understanding of what they had been through and presenting war as a source of misery and suffering.
Over the decades, Anzac Day has also been a vehicle of protest, from World War I veterans who felt that promises made to entice them into uniform were not being honoured to bereaved women who sought their own place in commemorations. In the 1980s, other groups, including First Australians, sought to have their role in the Anzac story recognised. Today, the occasion has become more inclusive, reflecting the diversity of the modern Australian Defence Force (ADF).
Heightened interest in the history of Anzac and what it means to today's service men and women culminated in large crowds attending ceremonies during the centenary of the Gallipoli landings. What the future holds for Anzac Day remains to be seen, but for more than 100 years, it has been one of Australia's most significant public occasions.
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