At eleven o'clock this morning in 1918 the War to End Wars ended. The conflict that everybody said would be over by Christmas 1914 had lasted four years and 97 days. The stats are terrifying - 9 million dead, 27 million wounded. The Allies' bill was £68.5 billion; the Central Powers £32.6 billion.
And the world would never be the same again.
In other news ...
I've never really understood Ned Kelly. He was an Australian outlaw hanged today in 1880 after a bank robbing career of just two years. He wore body armour - a breastplate and helmet made of iron. Perhaps he expected a role in The Man in the Iron Mask, then playing in the Melbourne Lyceum. Whatever the reason, the gear must have slowed him up a bit which probably enabled the Oz police to catch him in the first place.
