Videos

During the Spanish-American War, the YMCA initiated a program to recruit women to bring a little bit of home to U.S. troops. In this program from the National World War I Museum in Kansas Ci…

The Medal of Honor is the highest military decoration awarded by the U.S. government. The first was presented by President Lincoln in 1863. Daughters of World War I Medal of Honor recipients…

In 2013, Congress created the U.S. World War I Centennial Commission. One of its directives was to establish a national World War I memorial in Washington, D.C.  Edwin Fountain, the commissi…

World War I scholar and author James Carl Nelson discussed his book, The Polar Bear Expedition: The Heroes of America’s Forgotten Invasion of Russia, 1918 to 1919. In August of 1918, about 5…

Yiğit Akin is the author of When the War Came Home: The Ottomans' Great War and the Devastation of an Empire. He discussed his book, which looks at the impact of World War I on ordinary Otto…

Historian Adriane Lentz-Smith examined how African Americans endured military service during World War I while simultaneously battling the racism of Jim Crow America. She argued that the exp…

Neal Bascomb recounted a group of Allied prisoners who escaped a German POW camp in 1918, digging a tunnel for several months and then traveling 150 miles to Holland.

Military historian Geoffrey Wawro talked about his book, Sons of Freedom: The Forgotten American Soldiers Who Defeated Germany in World War I. Professor Wawro used photographs and maps to ar…

U.S. Naval War College Professor James Holmes analyzed the World War I Battle of Jutland between the British Royal Navy and the Imperial German Navy. A Navy gunnery officer on a battleship d…

Historian and author Robert Laplander presented a talk titled Hell’s Half Acre - The True Story of the Lost Battalion. Mr. Laplander has studied the subject for over twenty years and is the …

Retired U.S. Army Sergeant Major Gavin McIlvenna talked about the creation of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery following World War I. A former guard at the tomb…

Lora Vogt showed World War I uniforms and gas masks from the National World War I Museum and Memorial’s collection. The National World War I Museum and Memorial in Kansas City, Missouri, has…

U.S. Army Command & General Staff College professor Brian Steed talked about the impact of World War I on the Middle East and how the outcome of the war continues to play a role in present-d…

University of Minnesota professor Saje Mathieu talked about how World War I impacted African Americans. She argued that the promise of a better life because of military service in the war wa…

Professor John Calvert talked about the British campaigns in the Middle East during World War I. He focused on the year 1917, when British forces captured Gaza and Jerusalem from the Ottoman…

Russian history professor Olga Porshneva discussed how Russian soldiers' beliefs and attittudes about World War I contributed to the unrest that led to the 1917 Russian Revolution and the bi…

U.S. Army Command and General Staff College professor Richard Faulkner talked about American soldiers' views of the French, British, and Germans after arriving in Europe in 1917.

Historians Jay Sexton and Jennifer Keene discussed events leading up to U.S. entry into World War I. During this program, the historians commented on audio clips from “Enter the Peace Broker…

Professor John Curatola gave a talk titled “1916: The Air War.” Professor Curatola described the technological and tactical race to dominate the skies during World War I, including Germany’s…

Michael Kazin, author of War Against War: The American Fight for Peace, 1914-1918, talked about the formation of a peace coalition prior to World War I and argued that it almost succeeded in…