On this date in 1936, anticlerical leftists in the Spanish Civil War allegedly subjected a monumental statue of Christ to a ritual “execution”. “This picture, taken by a Paramount News-reel representative and received by air from Madrid yesterday, illustrates an … Continue reading
Czechoslovakian journalist Julius Fučík was executed by the Third Reich on this date in 1943. Nephew of a great composer of the same name, our Julius Fučík was an 18-year-old left-wing activist when the Social Democrat party he was a … Continue reading
Andrew of Phu Yen, the Catholic protomartyr of Vietnam, was executed on this date in 1644 at Ke Cham. Baptized with his mother in 1641 by French missionary Alexandre de Rhodes, our man Andrew was only 19 years old at … Continue reading
(Thanks for the guest post to Abraham Johnstone, who is … also the subject of the guest post. This was originally published, posthumously of course, as The Address of Abraham Johnstone, a Black Man, Who Was Hanged at Woodbury, in … Continue reading
Five Jesuits were hanged at Tyburn on this date in 1679, in the largest single mass execution of England’s “Popish Plot” hysteria. This club of five is the five of clubs in a Popish Plot-themed deck of cards. Here are … Continue reading
On this date in 1573, the Swedish commander of Weissenstein (present-day Paide, Estonia), Hans Boije af Gennäs was executed when his fortress was overrun by Russian troops, during the Livonian War. Ruins of (cc) image from Ivo Kruusamägi. A walled … Continue reading
(Thanks for the guest post to Paul Lorrain, the Ordinary of Newgate and a pioneer through these ordinary’s accounts of true crime printed ephemera. -ed.) The ORDINARY of NEWGATE his Account of the Behaviour, Confessions, and Last Speeches of the … Continue reading
On this date in 1942, 200-plus Australian and Dutch prisoners captured after the Battle of Ambon earlier that same year were summarily executed near Laha Airfield on present-day Maluku, Indonesia. It was the last and the largest of a series … Continue reading
The ensuing poem, titled “Melancholy Instance of Human Depravity” and published in an 1805 collection, laments a serving-girl’s murder by arsenic of the master and mistress of her house. It was a crime of unrequited love: the intended victim of … Continue reading
The remarkable-if-true criminal autobiography of Joseph Mountain, executed on this date in 1790 in New Haven, Connecticut, is transcribed here from the Dec. 14 and 21, 1790 issues of Spooners Vermont Journal, which has repurposed them from the American Mercury. … Continue reading