On the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918, an armistice, or temporary cessation of hostilities, was declared between the Allied nations and Germany in the First World War, then known as “the Great War.” Commemorated as Armistice Day beginning the following year, November 11th became a legal federal holiday in the United States in 1938. In the aftermath of World War II and the Korean War, Armistice Day became Veterans Day, a holiday dedicated to American veterans of all wars.
888,246 lives – a cascade of terrible beauty that shocks the eye as it tugs at the heart. The number of Empire soldiers who lost their lives in the “War to End All Wars”. The total number of military and civilian casualties in World War I was more than 38 million: there were over 17 million deaths and 20 million wounded, one of the deadliest conflicts in human history.
116,000 U.S. military lost their lives in WWI. 204,000 were wounded.









