We've created this poster to commemorate Anzac Day. Display our poster for Anzac Day to help remember and recognise the contributions of all Australians during the wars, conflicts and peace operations.
Wartime snapshot
Australians commemorated the first Anzac Day on 25 April 1916, which was 12 months after the landings on Gallipoli. The anniversary has been observed every year since. With few exceptions – when Australians felt threatened by invasion in 1942 and during the Covid-19 pandemic of more recent years – Anzac Day commemorations have always included a dawn service and march. In other respects, the day's format 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), the volunteer army raised for World War I. A second global war revived and reshaped the Anzac story, which now honoured 2 generations of service men and women. Since 1945, new chapters have been added, as Australians have served in wars, conflicts and peace operations around the world.
In some eras, it 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 sought to have their role in the Anzac story recognised, such as First Nations Australians and women protesting sexual violence in war. Today, Anzac Day has become more inclusive, reflecting the diversity of the modern Australian Defence Force.
Heightened interest in the history of Anzac and what it means to today's service personnel, their families and the community culminated in the 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 hundred years, it has remained one of Australia's most significant public occasions.
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