The World War One Centennial Commission and the Pritzker Military Museum & Library, in partnership with The American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars, will announce the first 50 memorials officially designated as WWI Centennial Memorials Wednesday, September 27, 2017 10:00am Eastern / 9:00am Central. This media event will be live streamed from the Pritzker Military Museum & Library in Chicago. The announcement will also be live-streamed via the PMML's YouTube channel and Facebook account, as well as via the Centennial Commission's Facebook account. All selected memorials will be posted on the Commission web site after the media event. Read all about this big 100 Cities / 100 Memorials announcement here.

The design for America’s proposed new National World War I Memorial in Washington DC has reached another key stage thanks to an innovative collaboration between the memorial’s sculptor and computer artists in New Zealand. Sabin Howard, the leading classical sculptor, has taken designs for the memorial from his studio in New York to Wellington to work with leading 3-D modelling specialists. Patrick Gregory of Centenary News recently interviewed Howard to get the latest lowdown on the project on the memorial sculpture's evolution and the instantiation planning for it.

There is a remarkable new exhibit at the National Afro-American Museum & Cultural Center in Dayton Ohio. The exhibit is called "African Americans Fighting for a Double Victory", and it includes a special section on World War I. The exhibit just opened this past weekend, on Sept. 23, 2017. Further, the museum is also hosting amazing public programs related to the exhibit, to include talks on African American genealogy, as it relates to World War I. We spoke to Jerolyn Barbee, Assistant Director for the museum, along with Paul LaRue, a noted historian and educator, who will give the public presentation on genealogy. Read the entire interview about this outstanding exhibition here.

The Library of Congress Veterans History Project (VHP) has launched “A World Overturned,” the final chapter in a three-part, online website series titled “Experiencing War,” dedicated to U.S. veterans of the First World War. "A World Overturned” highlights eight digitized veterans’ stories about how World War I forever changed their lives, shared through original photographs, letters, diaries, memoirs and other materials. This series has been presented as a companion site to the Library of Congress exhibit “Echoes of the Great War.” Congress created the Veterans History Project in 2000 to collect, preserve and make accessible the firsthand remembrances of America’s war veterans from WWI through the more recent conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, so that future generations may hear directly from veterans and better understand the realities of war. Read the entire article here to discover the stories of these three men and many others who served  in the Great War.

Do you have a story about a family member who participated in WWI? The kind of story that is repeated at every holiday dinner; one that tells tales of courage, of battles, of hardship? The World War One Centennial Commission web site’s Family Ties and Stories of Service sections give you the opportunity to research this family history, share these stories of your forbears, and to remember the sacrifices of those who served. Read the latest installment of our series on the outstanding resources to be found on the World War I Centennial Commission's web site. 

The WW1 Centennial News Podcast is about WW1 THEN: 100 years ago this week, and it's about WW1 NOW: News and updates about the centennial and the commemoration. 

Available on our web site, iTunes, Google Play, and TuneIn.

SPECIAL PART II

"Part 2: America Declares War"

Come back to the beginning with us in a very special WW1 Centennial News Podcast! Last week, in  Part 1 we examined the great debate in America about getting into the war, and today, in Part 2, we present how events overtook the debate and as America declared its entry into WW1.

This two part special is an adaptation from “In Sacrifice for Liberty and Peace,” a live staged event the Commission produced on the April 6, 2017 centennial of America’s entry into: The war that changed the world. Listen to Part 2 today!

"A monster... of war and not of war..." is how James Seamon Cotter Jr. describes the genocide and racism that make up an important part of WWI's history and memory in his poem "O, Little David, Play on Your Harp": the Armenian Genocide, Russian pogroms, the Belgian atrocities, the deadly prejudice against African Americans. This week, WWI poetry specialist, Connie Ruzich, revisits WWrite to discuss Cotter, a forerunner of the African American cultural renaissance of the 1920s, and his vision of the world during the Great War. Don't miss this tribute to a powerful poetic voice.

“Nothing Stops These Men” – Custom Key Tag $9.95

Inspired by an original World War One poster, this key tag features the dramatic image of a bayonet advance on the enemy, with the United States flag in the upper corner.

A functional way to show your patriotism, this  1-1/4” long, custom key tag has a bright gold finish, with color-fill, and is offered exclusively through the World War One Centennial Commission.

This and many other items are available as Official Merchandise of the United States World War One Centennial.