Honoring veterans has a special connection to World War I

Blog posted On November 12, 2018

Sunday is Veterans Day. This annual event often gets overlooked on the calendar in the run-up to Thanksgiving and the December holidays. But this Veterans Day is special. It’s the 100th anniversary of the unofficial end of World War I.

The actual peace treaty wasn’t signed until later, but November 11, 1918 — at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month — is when a truce called an armistice (pronounced ARM-iss-tiss) was signed and the fighting stopped.

One year later, President Woodrow Wilson declared November 11 Armistice Day. Other countries did the same, some calling it Remembrance Day. In this country, Armistice Day was renamed Veterans Day in 1954.

World War I was one of history’s largest wars. Most of the fighting was in Europe, but 30-plus countries took part, including the United States. More than 29 million soldiers worldwide died or were wounded, and an estimated 13 million civilians died — a horrific toll that led to it being branded “the war to end all wars.”

Read more at WashingtonPost.com.