Famously referred to by US president Woodrow Wilson as “the war to end all wars,” the first world war eclipsed all previous wars with its scale of destruction. With over twenty-seven nations involved, the battle-field horrors and political outcomes of the first truly global military conflict had repercussions that are still felt today.

NPR presents a vivid portrait of what most experts consider the first modern war, including profiles of America’s flying ace Eddie Rickenbacker, unlikely savior of war-torn Belgium Herbert Hoover, and the last surviving doughboy Frank Buckles.

Contents:

• Introduction by Rachel Martin
• Washington’s World War I Memorial
• Stumbling Into World War I, Like Sleepwalkers
• 1913 Leads a Tour of the World a Century Ago
• A Race Against Time to Find WWI’s Last Doughboys
• The Human Toll of the War To End All Wars
• National World War I Museum
• Frank Buckles: Last U.S. Veteran of World War I
• Belgian Exhibit Honors Hoover’s WWI Effort
• Christmas Truce
• Battle of the River Aisne
• WWI Poetry: The Words of War
• Ground War: Winston Rochet
• Last Post: Final Thoughts from Britain’s WWI Vets
• Diary Provides Black Soldier’s View of WWI
• Battle of the Somme
• France Pays Tribute to Early U.S. Fighter Pilots
• Thomas Sopwith, Plane Designer
• “Fast Eddie” Rickenbacker
• Robert K. Massie’s Castles of Steel
• Veterans Day Journey Ends Near WWI Trenches
• New Clues in Lusitania’s Sinking
• Germany’s Last WWI Debt
• Artists’ Masks Hid Wounds of WWI Soldiers
• WWI Munitions Still Live Beneath Western Front
• 11th Month, 11th Day, 11th Hour
• The Middle East and the West: WWI and Beyond
• The Bonus Army: How a Protest Led to the GI Bill
• The Savage Peace of 1919, Relevant Today
• Pete Seeger on His Uncle, Alan Seeger