100th Anniversary of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier: November 11, 2021

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100th Anniversary of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier: November 11, 2021

November 3, 2021 by Jenny Ashcraft | 47 Comments

On November 11, 1921, President Warren G. Harding presided over the dedication of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery in Washington, D.C. The monument honored fallen U.S. servicemen from WWI whose remains were unidentified. The ceremony took place the same day the country was celebrating the newly declared Armistice Day holiday.

 During WWI, the chaos of battle resulted in scores of unidentified dead servicemen. The creation of the memorial, also known as the Tomb of the Unknowns, was proposed in 1920 by New York Congressman and WWI veteran Hamilton Fish. Both Great Britain and France had dedicated similar monuments in 1920, and in March 1921, Congress approved the plan to build America’s tribute to unidentified fallen soldiers.

 Officials wanted to choose one unknown serviceman and reinter him in a tomb at Arlington. To select that soldier, the bodies of four unidentified U.S. servicemen were exhumed from different American military cemeteries in France in October 1921. They were placed in identical caskets and brought to the city hall in Châlons-sur-Marne, France,        https://blog.fold3.com/100th-anniversary-of-the-tomb-of-the-unknown-soldier-november-11-2021/