On this date in 1904, the state of Washington carried out its first execution under the auspices of a new law requiring that hangings be held in that state’s penitentiary in Walla Walla.*

Its subject was French-Canadian laborer Zenon Champoux, and his crime was as flamboyant as his moniker: publicly planting a knife in the forehead of a dance hall girl who did not return his affections.

The first man executed under the auspices of the Evergreen State, we admit, is a milestone that’s a bit on the smaller side.

But we think his name stands out admirably in the annals, especially paired with a characterization like the Seattle Star gave him: French degenerate.

“Zenon Champoux, French Degenerate” — it’s the scoundrel who’s rogering your girl, or else the branding on his designer condoms. On this date in 1904, it was just the guy at the end of his rope.

* Previously, hangings had been conducted by counties, in public. Laws removing them to the auspices of the state and behind the walls of a prison were in vogue at the time.

Washington went on to abolish the death penalty in 1913, only to reinstate it again in 1919.

On this day..

• 1506: James Tyrrell, Princes in the Tower murderer?
• 1780: Dennis Carragan, John Hill, and Marmaduke Grant, robbers
• 1916: Not Constance Markievicz, "I do wish your lot had the decency to shoot me"
• 1801: Franz Troglauer
• 1791: William Jones, "in a country out of the reach of my enemies"
• 1955: Johnson William Caldwell
• 1887: Theodore Baker, who knew how it feels to be hanged
• 1958: Vivian Teed, a first and a last
• 1970: Ibrahim Husain Muhammad
• 1972: Deniz Gezmis, Yusuf Aslan, and Huseyin Inan, Turkish revolutionaries
• 1777: Antoine-Francois Derues, scam artist
• 1916: Syrian and Lebanese nationalists, who christen "Martyr's Day"