Three-year project will be an amazing ‘encounter’

KANSAS CITY, MO (PNAN) – New main gallery opens Friday, May 23, 2025 at the National WWI Museum and Memorial with the exhibit “Encounters” that uses cutting-edge visual storytelling to tell the person narratives of WWI. Visitors will encounter 16 individuals and their intimate first-person accounts crafted from diaries, letters and photos, including:

• Allied and Central Power combat soldiers living through the hell of the Western Front and patrolling the seas in submarines;
• British colonial Indian soldiers contemplating death and rebelling against the futility of war;
• Women working in munitions factories to support the war effort; and dissenters arrested and tried for protesting involvement in the war.

The completion of Encounters culminates a three-year journey reinvigorating the Museum and Memorial, including the new Lower Level and Open Storage Center and updates to the Main Gallery, including 14 new interactive screens, three new films, new lighting and special effects, updated trenches, an authentic replica field hospital and much more.

For more information on current events and Memorial Day happenings, call 816.888.8122 or visit theworldwar.org.