On May 3, 1915 the poem “In Flanders Fields” was written by Canadian soldier and physician Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae.

On this day, George Gordon, Lord Byron, swims across the Hellespont, a tumultuous strait in Turkey now called the Dardanelles.

In Tokyo, Japan, the International Military Tribunals for the Far East begins hearing the case against 28 Japanese military and government officials accused of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity during World War II.