In Brussels, British nurse Edith Cavell is executed by a German firing squad for her role in assisting Allied soldiers to escape from German-occupied Belgium during World War I.
Cavell, who was 49 years old, began her nursing career in 1895 and became the matron of the Berkendael Institute in Brussels in 1907. After the German invasion of neutral Belgium, she provided shelter for British, French, and Belgian soldiers at the Institute and facilitated their escape to Holland. In August 1915, Cavell, along with several others, was arrested and faced a court-martial trial. She confessed fully and was sentenced to death on October 9. Despite appeals from neutral countries, including the United States and Spain, which considered the death sentence excessive, German authorities proceeded with the execution.
The Allied press idealized Cavell as a heroic figure, and she was posthumously honored with a statue in St. Martin’s Place, located just off Trafalgar Square in London.
