Trump to rename world war anniversaries as ‘Victory Day’ in US
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox
Mr Trump said the US did more than any other country in producing a victorious result on World War II.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Follow topic:
WASHINGTON - US President Donald Trump on May 1 expressed his intent to rename two US holidays to “Victory Day” in his latest attempt to alter the country’s nomenclature.
“I am hereby renaming May 8 as Victory Day for World War II and November 11 as Victory Day for World War I,” he wrote on his Truth Social platform.
Victory Day, observed by the European Union on May 8 and in former Soviet countries on May 9, marks the anniversary of the formal acceptance of Germany’s unconditional surrender by the Allied Forces at the end of World War II.
The war continued in Asia until the surrender of Japan in early September 1945 after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Though some in the United States mark the occasion, it is not a public holiday or celebrated as widely as in Europe.
“Many of our allies and friends are celebrating May 8 as Victory Day, but we did more than any other country, by far, in producing a victorious result on World War II,” Mr Trump’s post said.
Nov 11 was originally named “Armistice Day” by former US president Woodrow Wilson to mark the anniversary of 1918 armistice ending the armed conflict in World War I.
It is now a public holiday celebrated in the US as “Veterans Day” and meant to honour Americans who have served in the US armed forces.
“We won both wars, nobody was close to us in terms of strength, bravery, or military brilliance, but we never celebrate anything – That’s because we don’t have leaders any more, that know how to do so!” Mr Trump continued. “We are going to start celebrating our victories again!”
During World War II the Soviet Union, in which Russia was the largest of 15 republics, was allied with Britain and the United States against Nazi Germany.
The USSR suffered the greatest number of casualties in the war, with more than 20 million killed.
No executive order or proclamation enumerating the holiday name changes has been formally issued yet by the White House.
Mr Trump in his second term has repeatedly sought to rename parts of US public life, whether it be a national holiday – such as changing “Indigenous Peoples’ Day” back to “Columbus Day” – or a geographical feature, like renaming the “Gulf of Mexico” as the “Gulf of America”.
