1896: Mirza Reza Kermani, assassin of the Shah
2 comments August 12th, 2017 Headsman
On this date in 1896,* Persian revolutionary Mirza Reza Kermani was hanged publicly for assassinating the Qajar Shah of Persia.
Shah since his gouty father kicked off in 1848, Naser al-Din Shah Qajar enjoys the distinction of being the third-longest ruler in the long history of Persian polities.
Only 64 years old at his death, Naser al-Din was young enough to have made a good run at the longevity runner-up 16th century Shah Tahmasp I;** however, his increasingly dogged resistance to reform and proclivity for gifting economic concessions to foreign firms bearing lucrative kickbacks eventually induced a young revolutinary named Mirza Reza Kermani to shoot Nasser al-Din dead at a shrine. It’s alleged that he had foregone a previous opportunity to murder the king in a public space frequented by Jews celebrating Passover, for fear that the regicide would be attributed to them and induce pogroms.
Naser al-Din’s sybaritic son Mozaffar ad-Din Shah Qajar struggled equally to manage his restive subjects’ hunger for better statecraft, eventually (in 1906) leading to a constitutional era setting an a parliament at loggerheads with the Qajar princes.
* I’m attributing the date based on original reportage datelines in the Western press. There are some attributions to August 10 and to August 22 to be found.
** Number one is Shapur II, who was king for all of his 70 years in the fourth century.
On this day..
- 1469: Andrea Viarani - 2020
- 1335: Prince Moriyoshi, imperial martyr - 2019
- 1875: Joseph Le Brun, the last public hanging - 2018
- 1806: Josiah Burnham, despite Daniel Webster's defense - 2016
- 1895: Minnie Dean, the only woman hanged in New Zealand - 2015
- 1912: Sing Sing's seven successive sparks - 2014
- 1936: Manuel Goded Llopis - 2013
- 1469: Richard Woodville, father of the queen - 2012
- 2008: Leon David Dorsey, the Blockbuster Killer - 2011
- 1527: Jacques de Beaune, baron de Semblançay - 2010
- 1952: Night of the Murdered Poets - 2009
- 1833: Captain Henry Nicholas Nicholls, sodomite - 2008
Entry Filed under: 19th Century,Assassins,Capital Punishment,Death Penalty,Execution,Hanged,History,Iran,Murder,Notable for their Victims,Persia,Public Executions,Revolutionaries
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