The rondeau "In Flanders Fields" by the Canadian poet John McCrae is written; it is first published on December 8 in the London magazine Punch. He was inspired to write it, after presiding over the funeral of friend and fellow soldier Lieutenant Alexis Helmer, who died in the Second Battle of Ypres. According to legend, fellow soldiers retrieved the poem after McCrae, initially dissatisfied with his work, discarded it.