Augusta, you are now so big that the world’s temptations begin to surround you. Pay close attention to your own heart, for in the human heart lies a seed of evil and when it has the opportunity to take root it grows very fast …

–From the last letter of Gustav Hjert to his family

Below is a photo of the May 18, 1876 beheading of Gustav Adolf Eriksson Hjert, who with his accomplice in murder Konrad Petterson Lundqvist Tector/Tektor comprised the last public beheadings in Sweden. In the shocking image at hand, the fatal blow has been inflicted by the practiced arm of executioner Johan Fredrik Hort.

Hjert and Tector committed their capital crime together — it was a badly botched* armed robbery of a carriage that resulted in two people shot dead and no booty heisted — but they were separately separated from their heads: Hjert in Lilla Malma, and Tector in Stenkumla, both on the same Thursday morning.

* Botched as in, they were waiting to ambush the mail coach but in their eagerness they waylaid the wrong vehicle.

On this day..

• 1632: Topal Recep Pasha, Grand Vizier
• 1618: Nicole Regnault and the brothers Bouleaux
• 1917: Otilio Montaño, Zapatista
• 1548: Giulio Cybo, Andrea Doria disaster
• 1616: Margaret Vincent, "Pitilesse Mother"
• 1871: Edward Rulloff
• 1891: Benjamin Harrison spares the Navassa rioters
• 1812: John Bellingham, Prime Minister assassin
• 1965: Eli Cohen, Israel's man in Damascus
• 1990: Dalton Prejean, cop-killing child
• 1781: Tupac Amaru II, Incan insurgent
• 2004: Case Study: Kelsey Patterson