TODAY IN HISTORY: The soldier killed one minute before the end of WWI
Nobember 11
US soldier Henry Gunther is believed to have been the last combatant killed in WWI, cut down by machine gun fire after charging a German roadblock just one minute before the 11am Armistice took effect.
Gunther had been demoted from sergeant to private after an army censor intercepted a letter from him to a friend in the US, criticising the abysmal conditions on the Western Front. His fellow soldiers said he had been brooding on that, and that it possibly motivated him to carry out the charge that led to his death.
Witnesses said the German soldiers tried to wave Gunther - himself the son of German immigrants - away from their position, but he fired at them, prompting them to return a salvo.
Gunther was posthumously restored to a sergeant's position and was recorded as the last US soldier killed in the war.
Earlier on the morning of Gunther's death, French general Ferdinand Foch (second from right) signed the Armistice with Germany in his railroad car in the forest of Compiègne.
Due to the peace not taking effect until 11am - the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month - there were nearly 11,000 casualties on the final day of the war, including 2738 deaths.
Australian Prime Minister Gough Whitlam was ejected from his office on November 11, 1975, by order of Governor-General Sir John Kerr.
It was the culmination of an ongoing parliamentary stalemate in which the Coalition opposition, led by Malcolm Fraser, used its control of the Senate to continually block government bills. Whitlam sought permission from Kerr for a half-Senate election to break the deadlock, but Kerr instead dismissed Whitlam and appointed Fraser as a caretaker prime minister ahead of a double dissolution election.
Speaking to reporters after his dismissal (pictured), Whitlam said, "Ladies and gentleman, well may we say 'God save the Queen', because nothing will save the Governor-General."
Share a tip-off, video or photo with us
