Henry Gunther, a 23-year-old German-American clerk from Baltimore, was one of the so-called doughboys — the American infantryman sent to fight in France after the United States entered World War I in 1917.
When his rifle squad came upon a German roadblock in a Lorraine village, he alone rose up and charged with his bayonet fixed. A short burst of machine gun fire cut him down 60 seconds before an armistice was due to take effect, making him the last soldier — American or otherwise — killed in the Great War.
After four long years in which some 8 million soldiers died and another 29 million were injured, the fighting ended at 11 a.