The World War I Centennial Silver Dollar (pictured at left) will be available for purchase online from the Mint through to December 28, 2018. The Mint sales website is www.catalog.usmint.gov.

When the Huffington Post web site decided to do a series of articles on sculptor Sabin Howard (left) and the new National World War One Memorial at Pershing Park in Washington DC, it turned out that they had a real expert on Howard already on hand: contributing writer Traci Slatton, who also happens to be Sabin's wife. As one might imagine, Slatton's insider perspective very much informs her description of the "wild ride" that her husband has been on since he and his design partner architect Joe Weishaar won the competition to design and build the National World War I Memorial. In the first article of the series, Slatton discusses how "There is a personal human cost to a war; even 100 years later, that cost deserves to be honored. In the same way, there is a personal, human cost to making this memorial, and I am writing about it in this series to memorialize that. Artists and their families are people, too." Read the entire first article of this ongoing series here.

February 5, 1918: The sun was setting as the liner S.S. Tuscania and the British convoy made its way toward the cliffs of Scotland through icy gale-force wind and rough seas. Shortly before 6 p.m. a huge shock sent a tremor through the entire ship; all the lights went out at once, followed by the explosive sound of shattering glass. There was no question what had occurred: the Tuscania had been hit by a torpedo. On board were over 2,000 American troops. Read the entire story of the dramatic rescues that reduced the death toll, the tragedy of the unfortunates who were not saved, and how the local Scottish communities remember the event and those who were lost.

A fascinating archive of wartime letters from a U.S.-born fighter ace who served with British forces during World War I are up for auction in the U.K. Lt. Edgar Taylor was born in Rhode Island to British parents and served in the British Royal Flying Corps, which merged with the Royal Naval Air Service to become the Royal Air Force in 1918. Taylor, wrote home to a recipient known only as "Ruby" during the four months he spent serving with the Royal Flying Corps in 1918. “The content of the letters is superlative,” according to the auctioneer. Read more about this "incredible archive" showing "the matter of fact way this young man dealt with life and death situations" here.

Allied ships like the USS Siboney (left) frequently spent 1918 and 1919 dressed up in outlandish "dazzle" paint schemes. The idea was for ships to be seen, “but seen incorrectly,” according to Jennifer Marland, Curator of the National Museum of the United States Navy. If paint could be used to distort a ship’s angles, the thinking went, that would “make it difficult for the ship to be targeted efficiently by a submarine.” But how to test the efficacy of a given scheme for a given ship? The answer: tiny models. Read more about how the U.S. Navy created a vast library of dazzle-painted miniature ships--and maybe saved their real counterparts from torpedoes.

On January 23, 2018, the U.S. Army reached a historic milestone: one hundred years of dedicated psychological operations support to military and national security objectives. Of course, the practice of using psychological tactics to influence foreign populations predated 1918. However, it was not until World War I that the U.S. waged the first orchestrated military propaganda campaign in its history, establishing two agencies specifically for that purpose. The 100-year journey of Army PSYOPS from leaflets carried by hydrogen balloons in WWI (left) to the modern sophisticated methods of "delivering selected information and indicators to foreign audiences to influence their emotions, motives, objective reasoning, and ultimately the behavior of foreign governments, organizations, groups, and individuals" started with a team, never numbering more than thirty assigned and attached officers and soldiers, that went operational in August 1918. Read more about the WWI roots and the subsequent evolution of Army PSYOPS here.

Peter Jackson's next directing project has nothing to do with fantastical worlds: it's a World War One documentary, produced in association with 14-18 NOW, (the London based organization responsible for the poppy display at the Tower of London), set to coincide with the centennial of the war's end. Never-before-seen, century-old footage has been mined, restored, and hand-colorised from the archives of the Museum and the BBC, and will be edited into a feature - in 2D and 3D - by Jackson himself. The film focuses on the experiences of the people involved in the five-year war, as opposed to the larger strategy and politics, working from hundreds of hours of interviews with veterans. Read more about what Jackson says will not be "the usual film you would expect on the First World War" here.

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.

Episode 56
Highlights:

100 Years ago: About President Woodrow Wilson | @01:45

Special Guest: John Milton Cooper Jr. | @07:45

War in The Sky: Introducing General Billy Mitchell | @15:45

American Emerges: Baseball on the Polo Grounds - Dr. Edward Lengel | @16:40

European view of the war: Mike Shuster | @22:10

Special Commemorative Coin and Service Medallion Collector Sets | @27:05

A Century In The Making: Joe Weishaar | @28:25

Speaking WWI: Acronym flips RAMC and REPS | @34:25

Spotlight In The Media: Director Peter Jackson | @35:45

100C/100M: The City of Nitro, West Virginia - Rich Hively and Mayor Dave Casebolt | @38:50

WW1 War Tech: Tankgewehr - David O’Neal | @44:45

The Buzz: Social Media - Katherine Akey | @51:05

MUST ORDER NOW: These combination coin and service medal sets will only be available until Feb. 20, 2018. 

Collector Set: $99.95

The WORLD WAR I 2018 SILVER DOLLAR design, titled “Soldier’s Charge,” depicts an almost stone-like soldier gripping a rifle. Barbed wire twines in the lower right hand side of the design. Inscriptions include “LIBERTY,” “1918,” and “IN GOD WE TRUST.”

The reverse side depicts a Navy Officer’s Cap Device* used in World War I. The inscriptions are “UNITED STATES NAVY,” “2018,” and “CENTENNIAL OF WORLD WAR I." (*Note that an official, uniform seal of the United States Navy had not been adopted at the time of World War I.) 

These sets are limited to 100,000 units across all five medal product options, and can be ordered only until 3 p.m. ET on February 20, 2018, unless the limit is reached prior to that date. Production will be based on the orders received within this window. Fulfillment of these sets will begin in late May 2018. 

Produced by the US Mint, the World War I Centennial 2018 Uncirculated Silver Dollar, the Proof Silver Dollar and the 5 service medal combination sets are all available for a limited time directly from the US Mint.