COVINGTON, Ky. - The City of Covington is asking that its churches, schools, and any other building with bells to toll them at 11 a.m. Sunday to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Armistice Day.
The “Bells of Peace” is a nationwide campaign to mark the centennial remembrance of the ending of fighting in World War I, the armistice being signed “on the 11th hour, of the 11th day, of the 11th month.”
(Nov. 11 has since come to be celebrated as Veterans Day in the United States, honoring veterans both living and dead.)
Covington Mayor Joe Meyer has issued a proclamation designating Sunday as “The Tolling of the ‘BELLS OF PEACE’ Day” in the City and encouraging both residents and institutions to join in the campaign.
Over 84,000 Kentuckians served in the U.S. armed forces during World War I. Of these, 2,418 died.
The deaths included 42 natives of Covington or Latonia (which had recently been annexed into the City), according to the Kentucky Department of Veterans Affairs.
In a message to the nation on the one-year anniversary of the armistice, then-President Wilson said this: “A year ago today our enemies laid down their arms in accordance with an armistice which rendered them impotent to renew hostilities, and gave to the world an assured opportunity to reconstruct its shattered order and to work out in peace a new and juster set of international relations. ...
“Out of this victory there arose new possibilities of political freedom and economic concert. The war showed us the strength of great nations acting together for high purposes, and the victory of arms foretells the enduring conquests which can be made in peace when nations act justly and in furtherance of the common interests of men.”
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