On this date in 2000, Hassan bin Awad al-Zubair was publicly beheaded in the Saudi capital of Riyadh for sorcery.

In other news, Saudi Arabia executes people for sorcery.

And not just in the bad old days of the 20th century; a Lebanese television personality who had the impiety to proffer predictions on his call-in show has been facing execution after being collared by the upright citizens’ brigade while on the umrah pilgrimage. (He appears to have escaped beheading; the case made worldwide headlines in 2009-2010.)

Hassan bin Awad al-Zubair, a Sudanese national, was not fortunate enough to have a television audience and months of publicity. Amnesty International thinks that neither he nor his family was even aware that he was death-sentenced until that sentence was actually executed.

The Saudi Interior Ministry statement on this surprise beheading explained that he had asserted the power to heal the sick and “separate married couples.” (Maybe he should have been a television personality after all.)

On this day..

• 1930: Dr. James Snook, Ohio State University professor
• 1616: Vincenz Fettmilch
• 1525: Cuauhtémoc, the last Aztec emperor
• 1785: Horea and Closca, Transylvanian rebels
• 1975: The Gold Bar Murderers
• 628: Khosrau II, Sassanid emperor
• 1800: Roddy McCorley, at Toomebridge
• 1946: Bela Imredy, Hungarian fascist prime minister
• 1476: The Garrison of Grandson, by Charles the Bold
• 1810: Tommaso Tintori, the first guillotined in Rome
• 1887: Roxalana Druse, the last woman hanged in New York
• 2002: Monty Allen Delk, in a Three-Pronged Failure