If you’re a fan of order and tidiness, pleased by the aesthetics of symmetry, or simply a numbers geek then I’m sure I don’t need to tell you the significance of today’s date. The height of this palindrome happiness came for me at 11:11:11 GMT this morning when the 12-digit joy was captured and forever immortalised on my iPhone.

I was genuinely so excited that I called my friend to share the joy, forgetting that it was 05:11 in Chicago. That’s what friends are for, right?

If anyone reading this was born on June 11th 1981 then this is your 11111th day alive! (credit to my friend James Netto for alerting me to this amazingly pointless fact).

For many lovers it is the ultimate wedding date – not least of all because it makes the anniversary so easy to remember! 53 couples were wed at the famous wedding spot in Scotland, Gretna Green, while Disney, Orlando is hosting 11 weddings to mark the occasion.

It’ll come as no surprise to many of you that this once-in-a-century date is the subject of predictions of prophecies, ranging from ‘end of the world’ scenarios to the beginning of new spiritual eras. If it’s the former, then at least us palindrome geeks will die with smiles on our faces.

For those over at the Corduroy Appreciation Club, who host their annual meetings on January 11th and November 11th – the dates which most resemble corduroy – I’m sure this year’s meeting will be extra special. Well… as special as any meeting focused solely on a mutual love for a fabric…  Some have vowed to wear three items of corduroy today…! Personally, I fail to understand the excitement of the material myself (they have poems and drawings on their site and everything) but as someone writing about a palindrome, who am I to judge??

And hopefully I need not remind you all that, as with every year, November 11th is a very significant day regardless of its aesthetics.  Armistice Day, or Remembrance Day, commemorates the armistice signed for the cessation of World War I, which took effect at the “eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month” in 1918. A two-minute silence is taken at 11:00 local time as a sign of respect for the millions who died during the war. They fell so that we may live in peace and freedom; they shall not be forgotten.

If nothing else, today is significant as being one day where we Brits and Americans can all agree for once on the date! (But obviously the real order-loving Americans amongst you will agree that writing day/month/year just makes logical, size-order sense, right? Good.)

Oh and just to prove I’m not alone: The Guardian set up a flickr account especially for this monumental occasion where people have uploaded their various artistic captures of the special time.