On Christmas Eve 1914, something remarkable happened on the Western Front during the First World War.

Soldiers in the trenches on both sides of no man's land cease fighting.

Not only did they stop fighting, but they came out of their trenches to meet each other to celebrate Christmas.

It's become one of the most mythologized events of the war and one of the oddest events in military history.

Learn more about the Christmas truce of 1914 and what really happened on this episode of

Everything Everywhere Daily. On Christmas Day 1914, no one had thought that the war would still be going on.

When the war began in the summer, both sides thought that it would be over by autumn. In fact the phrase

often used by the troops was that they would be home by Christmas. Instead what

happened is that the war devolved into a stalemate. The main German advance

was stopped early on at the Battle of the Marne.

Both sides dug in and the result was the trench warfare that the conflict became known for.

What the soldiers quickly found out was that the trenches were horrible.

You lived every day under the constant threat of artillery attack.

If you should happen to stick your head over the wall of the trench, it's likely that you would

be instantly shot.

Assuming you kept your head down and stayed in the trench,

you would have to live in wet filthy conditions.

Diseases were rampant and there was a good chance

you'd have to live with rats.

The odd thing is, as bad as the trenches were it was probably better than the

alternative which was to be ordered over the walls of the trench in an attack

which meant almost certain death as each side began digging trenches, the lines became longer

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