World leaders gather in Paris a century after WWI armistice

President Trump, first lady Melania Trump, left, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel attend ceremonies at the Arc de Triomphe Sunday, Nov. 11, 2018 in Paris. (Associated Press).

President Trump joined French leader Emmanuel Macron on Sunday as nearly 70 world leaders gathered in Paris to mark 100 years since the end of World War I.
Trump was accompanied by first lady Melania Trump at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at the base of the Arc de Triomphe. The president also was to attend a leaders' lunch hosted by Macron.
Afterward, Trump planned to visit and deliver Veterans Day remarks at the Suresnes American Cemetery and Memorial outside Paris where more than 1,500 Americans who died during the war are buried.
Rain on Saturday forced the cancellation of Trump's helicopter trip to a different American cemetery in France.
France, the epicenter of the first global conflict, was hosting the main international commemoration, pressing home the point that the world mustn't stumble into war again, as it did so quickly and catastrophically with World War II.
The world leaders were scheduled to gather at precisely 11 a.m. Paris time, the moment of the cease-fire -- but apparently arrived a bit late, the Associated Press reported.

A cemetery employee walks between graves of American service members killed during  World War I at the American Cemetery in Suresnes, on the outskirts of Paris, Nov. 9, 2018.  (Associated Press)

On the other side of the globe, the first countries and territories to see the dawn kicked off the commemorations, pushing for peace with the simple act of recalling how the 1914-1918 war killed and wounded soldiers and civilians in unprecedented numbers and in gruesome new, mechanized ways.
Australia and New Zealand lost tens of thousands of people on foreign fields far away in Europe and, most memorably in the brutal 1915 battle of Gallipoli in Turkey. Both commemorated their dead Sunday.
In Paris, the jewel that Germany sought to capture in 1914 but which the Allies fought successfully to defend, commemorations were centered around the Arc de Triomphe, where the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier represents the sacrifice of all those who gave their lives.