On this date in 1915, songwriter, poet and labor activist Joe Hill was shot in Utah for the murder of a local butcher.

Even before his execution, the Swedish immigrant was widely thought to have been railroaded for his IWW affiliation.

Though state authorities had little use for the worldwide clemency bid whose backers included U.S. President Woodrow Wilson — powerless to intervene officially, since the execution was a state matter — Hill walked spryly into his martyrdom. The strange post-mortem career of his totemic ashes is the least of the ways Hill lives on.

His dauntless last message to fellow Wobbly Bill Haywood — “Don’t waste any time mourning. Organize.” — is a permanent fixture on pins and placards among every stripe of left activist. The songs he wrote remain in print — and in performance.

And the Depression-era tribute ballad “I Dreamed I Saw Joe Hill Last Night” can seamlessly serenade ripped-from-the-headlines footage, as a Paul Robeson rendition does in these clips of 1998 protests against then-New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

On this day..

• 2010: Li Haito, reliquarian
• 1840: Zachariah Freeman
• Feast Day of St. Barlaam
• 1659: William Lamport, the real Zorro?
• 1784: Richard Barrick, Massachusetts highwayman
• 1895: Jesus Vialpando and Feliciano Chavez, desperados
• 1720: Edward Hunt, the first counterfeiter executed in colonial Pennsylvania
• 1929: Myles Fukunaga
• c. 865: Ragnar Lodbrok, Viking raider
• Themed Set: Vikings
• 1945: Three German war criminals
• 2002: Craig Neil Ogan, drug war informant
• 1928: Marshall Ratliff lynched for the Santa Claus Bank Robbery
• Themed Set: The "Ex" Stands for "Extrajudicial"