On this date in 1941, “the Romanian Einstein” Francisc Panet was shot with his wife Lili and three other Communists at a forest near Jilava.

A chemical engineer by training, Panet or Paneth (English Wikipedia entry | Romanian) was fascinated by the theoretical research then revolutionizing physics.

While studying in Czechoslovakia, his work on elementary particles brought him to Einstein’s attention, and the two met in 1932 and corresponded thereafter. Panet’s advocates claim that Einstein foresaw for him a brilliant future.

But back in a Romania dominated by fascism, his scientific gifts would be required for more urgent and less exalted purposes: cooking homemade explosives in his bathroom for Communist saboteurs.

Eventually the secret police traced the munitions back to Panet, and he and his wife were arrested in a Halloween raid. Condemned to death in a two-hour court martial on November 5, they allegedly went before the fascists’ guns with the Internationale on their lips.

On this day..

• 1888: Pedro, the pirate Ñancúpel
• 1810: Metta Fock, embroiderer
• 1707: Bartellemy Pichon dit La Roze, the first executed in Fort Detroit
• 1873: Captain Joseph Fry and 36 crew of the Virginius
• 1765: Alexander Provan, half-handed
• 1898: Sokong, Lavari, and Kruba of the Imperri
• 1918: Louis Harris and Ernest Jackson, the last British soldiers shot at dawn
• 1864: Retaliatory executions by John Mosby
• 1823: Rafael Riego, Spanish liberal
• 1817: The Pentrich Rebellion leaders
• 1550: Jon Arason, the last Catholic bishop of Iceland
• 1944: Hannah Szenes, who gambled on what mattered most
• 1944: Richard Sorge and Hotsumi Ozaki