The elimination of public executions in America might have aimed at public decorum, but it certainly did not remove executions from the domain of spectacle.
Inevitably, death attracts attention.
Over hedge rows — outside prison walls — in pulpits, legislatures, and the rising din of the mass media — the spectacle took new forms.
The next three dates all capture American executions after the end of public hangings … and the new ways this now-secret punishment announced itself in the communities carrying it out.
On this day..
- 2007: Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti and Awad Hamed al-Bandar, Saddam Hussein aides
- 1870: Sylvain Salnave, deposed Haitian president
- 1811: The slaves of the German Coast Uprising
- 1648: Francis Ferdinand de Capillas, protomartyr of China
- 1784: Cassumo Garcelli, a Tuscan sailor on Boston Common
- 1944: Zinaida Portnova, Komsomol hero
- 1973: Lim Seng, under Philippines martial law
- 69: Galba, in the Year of the Four Emperors
- 1999: Recak Massacre
- 2000: Kasongo, child soldier
- 2009: A day in the death penalty around the world
- 1895: Charles Stokes, in the heart of darkness
- 1943: Sue Logue, George Logue and Clarence Bagwell
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