Veterans Day traces its roots back to World War I, originally known as the Great War, because the carnage and scope (it involved all of the world’s major powers and a total number of combatants topping 70 million troops) of it surpassed any previous armed struggle experienced in the history of civilization. The official end of hostilities was marked by the Treaty of Versailles, signed on June 28, 1919 at the palace of the same name on the outskirts of Paris.