1637: Tabaniyassi Mehmed Pasha, former Grand Vizier
February 2nd, 2017 Headsman
Ottoman politician Tabaniyassi (“Flat-Footed”) Mehmed Pasha was executed by drowning on this date in 1637, having fallen foul of the tyrannous Sultan Murat IV.
It hadn’t been long since Mehmed Pasha (English Wikipedia entry | Turkish) was the one inflicting the sultan’s chastisements instead of receiving them; he was appointed Grand Vizier in 1632 to crush a Janissary revolt* in Egypt, and did so with brutal aplomb.
His career thereafter saw him carry Turkish arms to Persia and Armenia, and bully client princes in the Porte’s European sphere. Murat eventually grew suspicious that his aide might be conspiring against him and had him imprisoned at the capital’s imposing Yedikule Fortress.
* The sultan had reason to fear these mercurial praetorians; he had the throne thanks to that same clique’s 1622 murder of a predecessor.
On this day..
- Feast Day of St. Apronian the Executioner - 2020
- 1610: Pierre Canal, Geneva sodomite - 2019
- 1715: Ann Wright, branded - 2018
- 1940: Mikhail Koltsov, Soviet journalist - 2016
- 1905: Elisabeth Wiese, the angel-maker of St. Pauli - 2015
- 1989: Vladimir Lulek, the last Czech executed - 2014
- 1708: Indian Sam and his female accomplice - 2013
- 1951: The first four of the Martinsville seven - 2012
- 1945: Carl Goerdeler, as penance for the German people - 2011
- Daily Double: 1945, and the legacy of Valkyrie - 2011
- 1461: Owen Tudor, sire of sires - 2010
- 1940: Vsevolod Meyerhold - 2009
- 1512: Hatuey, defied Spanish colonization - 2008
Entry Filed under: 17th Century,Capital Punishment,Death Penalty,Drowned,Execution,History,Ottoman Empire,Politicians,Power,Treason,Turkey
Tags: 1630s, 1637, february 2, istanbul, murad iv, tabaniyassi mehmed pasha
