Unknown Soldier, Tomb of the  Unknown Soldier, Tomb of the, form
of memorial to a nation's war dead, adopted by many countries
after World War I. The Tomb of the Unknowns, a memorial to the
American dead of World Wars I and II, the Korean War, and the
Vietnam War, is in Arlington National Cemetery, just outside
Washington, D.C. On Nov. 11, 1921, an unidentified soldier who
had been killed in France was buried there in a temporary crypt
over which a marble slab was placed; the completed tomb, a
sarcophagus of Colorado marble placed on the original base, was
dedicated as the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier on Nov. 11, 1932.
On Memorial Day, 1958, the bodies of two other unknown
soldiers—one of whom had died in World War II, the other during
the Korean War—were buried in the tomb, which was renamed the
Tomb of the Unknowns. Remains of an unknown soldier from the
Vietnam War were interred here in 1984, but later investigations
revealed the soldier's identity, and they were removed. Deciding
that scientific advances,