This year's Armistice Day events have special significance because 2014 is the centenary of the start of World War One. 11 November 2014 marks the 96th anniversary of the signing of the Armistice that ended the war.

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A member of the armed forces with prosthetic legs pays his respects at the Armed Forces Memorial in the National Memorial Arboretum near Lichfield, Staffordshire Oli Scarff/AFP
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A poppy sits in the hand of a statue at the Armed Forces Memorial during Armistice Day commemorations at the National Memorial Arboretum in Alrewas Phil Noble/Reuters
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Crosses bearing a poppy are placed at the base of a statue at the Armed Forces Memorial in the National Memorial Arboretum Oli Scarff/AFP
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Poppy wreaths cover the road at the base of the Cenotaph in London Andrew Cowie/AFP
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Poppies fall during a two-minute silence at a Remembrance Day service at the Lloyd's of London building Carl Court/Getty Images
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Royal British Legion members await the start of the Armistice Day service in Aylesford, Kent Getty
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Defence secretary Michael Fallon lays a wreath during the Armistice day service at the Royal British Legion village in Aylesford, Kent Getty
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Crosses are placed in the garden of remembrance in Princes Street, Edinburgh Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images
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Former Royal Engineer Robert Mackenzie joins veterans and members of the public to pay tribute to those who died during the two World Wars and subsequent conflicts at the garden of remembrance in Edinburgh Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images

Thousands of people gathered at the Tower of London, where a blood-red sea of ceramic poppies has spilled into the moat as part of an art installation paying tribute to soldiers killed in the fighting.

A 13-year-old army cadet, Harry Hayes, planted the final poppy — the last of the 888,246 flowers — one for each of the British and Commonwealth soldiers killed in the war. Among the dead was Hayes' great-great-great uncle, Pvt. Patrick Kelly of the 1st Battalion, Irish Guards.

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Harry Hayes, 13, from the Reading Blue Coat School Combined Cadet Force, salutes after planting the final poppy at the Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red installation at the Tower of London Justin Tallis/AFP
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Sir Richard Dannatt reads the names of the fallen during a ceremony in which the last ceramic poppy was placed in the moat of Tower of London Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images

French President Francois Hollande laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier under the Arc de Triomphe in Paris.

He then headed to Notre-Dame-de-Lorette for the official inauguration of a giant new war memorial engraved with the names of the 580,000 men who lost their lives in northern France during the First World War. Names are listed alphabetically without regard to their nationalities or ranks.

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French President Francois Hollande prepares to lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown soldier under the Arc de Triomphe in Paris AFP
armistice day
French President Francois Hollande pays his respect to the unknown soldiers in the crypt of the Notre-Dame-de-Lorette basilica in northern France AFP
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A French veteran holds a flag during Armistice Day ceremonies in Lyon AFP
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