5:00 a.m. on November 11, 1918 –
French Army clerk Henri Deledicq finished typing the peace treaty that would end World War I. He had put the carbon paper in backwards. Ten minutes later, in a railroad car in France, military leaders signed copies of an armistice that were completely unreadable. World War I ended on this date. –
It’s Veterans Day in the United States and Armistice Day for many in Europe –
(and it’s Singles Day in China, 11/11– it’s considered China’s Anti-Valentine’s Day, but we’re not going to discuss that now.)
November 11, 1920 –
One of the most famous tombs in Westminster Abbey is that of The Unknown Warrior. A tomb of an unknown British soldier who was killed on the battlefield during World War I. He was buried in Westminster Abbey on this date. (Another unknown soldier was buried on this date at the Arc de Triomphe in France.) The tomb is in the far western end of the nave and is covered by a slab of black Belgian marble. It is the only tomb in the abbey on which it is forbidden to walk.
One year after unknown soldiers were simultaneously buried at Westminster Abbey, London, and the Arc de Triomphe in France, President Warren G. Harding dedicated the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier (a white marble sarcophagus in Arlington National Cemetery.)
The tombstone itself, designed by sculptor Thomas Hudson Jones, was not completed until 1932, when it was unveiled bearing the description “Here Rests in Honored Glory an American Soldier Known but to God.” The World War I unknown was later joined by the unidentified remains of soldiers from America’s other major 20th century wars and the tomb was put under permanent guard by special military sentinels.
And so it goes
The Haus of Dcaligari 