Freedom-fighting Polish priest Stanislaw Brzoska was hanged in the marketplace of Sokolow Podlaski on this date in 1865.

A young firebrand who had already served time in a Russian fortress because of his nationalist harangues, Brzoska (English Wikipedia entry | Polish) put his faith into deeds with the 1863 January Uprising against Russia’s domination of what was once the Polish-Lithuanian Empire.

He fought in several battles, and a 40-man mounted unit he had personally raised was in the field until the end of 1864 — well after Russia had quelled most other resistance.

Finally cornered in April 1865 and captured in a gunfight, he was executed before a crowd of thousands. Later generations, with an independent Poland to call their own, have garlanded Brzoska’s memory with various markers and statues.

Polish speakers might enjoy this presentation of the hero-priest’s life:

On this day..

• 1701: Captain Kidd
• 1936: Adolf Seefeldt, Uncle Tick-Tock
• 1942: Georges Politzer and Jacques Solomon, academics in resistance
• 1996: Yevgeny Rodionov, Chechen War martyr and folk saint
• 1699: Nikol List, Golden Plate robber
• 1991: Ignacio Cuevas, Huntsville Prison Siege survivor
• 1876: Four for the Mutiny on the Lennie
• 1892: Frederick Bailey Deeming, Bluebeard
• 1673: Thomas Cornell, on spectral evidence
• 1906: Ivan Kalyayev, moralistic assassin
• 1832: Samuel Sharpe, "I would rather die upon yonder gallows than live in slavery"
• 1498: Girolamo Savonarola, as he had once burned vanities