(Thanks to Robert Elder of Last Words of the Executed — the blog, and the book — for the guest post. This post originally appeared on the Last Words blog. Fans of this here site are highly likely to enjoy following Elder’s own pithy, almanac-style collection of last words on the scaffold. -ed.)

“It looks pretty dark, but if I have to, I guess I can take my medicine.”

-Morris Cohen, convicted of murder, Illinois. Executed October 13, 1933

A thirty-eight-year-old barber, Cohen got the electric chair for the murder of Officer Joseph Hastings during a robbery attempt at Chicago’s Navy Pier. A secondary headline in the Chicago Daily Tribune read “Record for Speedy Justice Is Set.” He had been executed less than two months after the crime.

On this day..

• 1998: Jeremy Vargas Sagastegui
• 1941: Bronislava Poskrebysheva
• 1762: James Collins, James Whem, and John Kello
• 1960: Tony Zarba, anti-Castro raider
• 1871: James Wilson, steely burglar
• 1909: Francisco Ferrer, martyred teacher
• 1990: The October 13 Massacre
• 1944: Six German POWs, for Stalingrad's Dulag-205
• 1864: Ranger A.C. Willis, parabolically
• 1846: William Westwood, aka Jackey Jackey
• 1815: Joachim Murat, Napoleonic Marshal
• 1660: Major-General Thomas Harrison, the first of the regicides