On August 31, 1767, Thomas Nicholson hung in chains at Carleton for murdering his godfather Thomas Parker — a sort of god-parricide.

And we would tell you all about this (rather banal) crime and the (extremely interesting) lineage of the hanging-in-chains punishment that has decorated our pages as it once did the English (and American) byways with gibbets … but Stephen Lewis at the interesting blog The Wild Peak has already taken care of all that. Read his post on Nicholson here.

On this day..

• 2006: James Malicoat, little Pranzini
• 1996: Rodolfo Soler Hernandez, burned on video
• 1816: Joaquim Camacho
• 1860: Samuel Brust
• 1807: Jenkin Ratford, Chesapeake-Leopard affair casualty
• 1526: 2,000 Hungarian prisoners after the Battle of Mohacs
• 1876: Jesse Pomeroy's sentence commuted
• 1887: Henri Pranzini, repentant?
• 1900: William Black, nearly lynched
• 1923: Nathan Lee, the last public hanging in Texas
• 1852: Fatimih Baraghani, Tahirih the pure
• 1593: Pierre Barrière, undeterringly