1915 Canadian poet and physician John McCrae writes the poem "In Flanders Fields" at Ypres on the Western Front.
1916 Irish Nationalists Patrick Pearse, Thomas MacDonagh and Thomas Clarke are executed by firing squad following their involvement in the Easter Rising.
1921 Northern Ireland is created under the UK Government of Ireland Act partitioning off six north eastern counties with a Protestant majority.
1945 German ocean liner SS Cap Arcona, laden with prisoners is sunk by the Royal Air Force in the western Baltic Sea, killing 5,800. One of the largest maritime losses of life in World War II.
1947 Japan's post-war constitution goes into effect, granting universal suffrage, stripping Emperor Hirohito of all but symbolic power and outlawing Japan's right to make war.
2001 The United States loses its seat on the U.N. Human Rights Commission for the first time since the commission was formed in 1947.
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