Last year on this date, according to a Deutsche Presse-Agentur report of the Syrian news service, five youths were publicly hanged in Aleppo, Syria.

Syria executed five youths by hanging in a public square on Thursday after they were convicted of murder and robbery, the Syrian news agency reported.

The hanging was carried out in Bab al-Faraj, a public square in the centre of the city of Aleppo, 350 kilometres north of Damascus, in the early hours on Thursday, according to the agency.

Bab al-Faraj square.

A military court had convicted the men, aged between 18 and 23, of premeditated murder for the purpose of committing robbery, according to the online news service, Syriano.

Syrian human rights groups have called for the abolition of military courts, which were installed under emergency law in 1963.

On this day..

• 1944: Zainal Mustafa, resister
• 1974: Walkiria Afonso da Costa, the last Araguaia guerrilla
• 2009: Two Somali spies
• 1704: "French Peter"
• 1770: William Linsey, resolutely bent upon working wickedness
• 1781: Gaspard de Besse, social bandit
• 2014: Reyhaneh Jabbari
• Feast Day of Saints Crispin and Crispinian
• 2006: Danny Rolling, the Gainesville Ripper
• 330 B.C.E.: Philotas, Alexander the Great Companion
• 1769: Nicolas de Lafreniere and four others for the Louisiana Rebellion
• 1415: French prisoners at the Battle of Agincourt