Edith Cavell

Edith Louisa Cavell was a British nurse. She is celebrated for treating wounded soldiers from both sides without discrimination during the First World War and for helping some 200 Allied soldiers escape from German-occupied Belgium. Cavell was arrested, court-martialled under German military law and sentenced to death by firing squad. Despite international pressure for mercy, the German Government refused to commute her sentence and she was shot. The execution received worldwide condemnation and extensive press coverage.

4 December 1865

Born on the same birth day (4 December): Agnes Forbes Blackadder • Albert Bandura • Bjørn Kjellemyr • Constance Davey • Ely Jacques Kahn Jr. • Erwin von Witzleben • Gabriel Lundberg • Gary Freeman (rugby league) • Jay DeMerit • Joe Musgrove • Raul Boesel • Sergei Starikov • Suzette M. Malveaux • Tahir Dawar • Thomas Carlyle • Winifred Carney

Born in the same month (December 1865): Charles Sands • Elsie de Wolfe • Evangeline Booth • Félix Vallotton • Jacques Hadamard • James M. Canty • Jean Sibelius • Minnie Maddern Fiske • Olavo Bilac • Rudyard Kipling • Rüdiger von der Goltz • Szymon Askenazy