I always found it poetic that World War I ended on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month. But did you know that the quest for poetic symmetry came at a terrible cost?

The armistice was actually signed at 5 A.M., but for six hours the staccato of machine guns and the howls of streaking artillery shells reverberated across the French countryside as the war continued to rage and claimed the lives of nearly 3,000 soldiers including one American private who sought to restore his reputation in the war’s final minute. Links to that story in this month’s edition of the Throwback, my monthly history-themed e-newsletter, along with a discussion of presidential deaths, a 1902 anti-vaccination showdown in Boston, and a statue to a Fenian Raid general.