Veterans Day was originally called Armistice Day and was established by President Wilson to commemorate the end of World War I, which was officially over on “the eleventh hour, of the eleventh day, of the eleventh month” of 1918.
In 1954 President Eisenhower changed Armistice Day to Veterans Day in order to honor all those who served in all U.S. wars. (Memorial Day specifically honors those who died in the wars.)
World War One, which combined outmoded fighting techniques with modern weaponry, had a horrific number of casualties. The total number of Allied casualties (killed, wounded, and missing) was 22 million! The Central Powers lost 15 million (which was, however, a higher percentage of their mobilized armies than were the casualties of the Allies).
As if this weren’t bad enough, early in 1918 an influenza epidemic began and spread all over the world (thanks, probably, to the War). By the time it ran its course in 1919, more people had died from the flu than had died in the War, numbering at somewhere between 20 to 40 million people, including an estimated 675,000 Americans.
You can read about this remarkable chapter in our history in the book “The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History” by John M. Barry.
