On this date in 2007, according to the Daily NK, five women were publicly tried, then immediately shot, in Hoiryeong Public Stadium in North Korea’s North Hamkyung province.

Their crime, “prostitution”, is supposed to be a euphemism for aiding refugees escaping to China in the area that also generated an infamous execution film broadcast on Japanese television in 2005. (And other death sentences earlier in 2007. North Korea is not enthusiastic about escapees.)

As usual with the insular state, details are hard to come by. The North Korean Human Rights Infringement Center claimed Pyongyang carried out 901 public executions in 2007; that figure would potentially make it the world’s #2 (after China) death penalty user, though Amnesty International doesn’t even venture a tally of North Korean executions.

On this day..

• 1938: Adam "Eddie" Richetti, Pretty Boy Floyd sidekick
• 2004: Ken Bigley, Iraq War hostage
• 1967: The Asaba Massacre
• 1415: Lello Capocci, schism victim
• 1989: Francis Minah, Vice President of Sierra Leone
• 1546: The Fourteen of Meaux
• 1998: Jonathan Wayne Nobles
• 1536: Sebastiano de Montecuccoli, poisoner of the heir?
• 1898: Alfred C. Williams
• Unspecified date: British soldiers by urophagia
• 1924: Frank Johnson, the first electrocuted in Florida
• 1943: 98 American civilian contractors on Wake Island