For murdering his two brothers, Antoni Areny was executed on this date in 1943 in Andorra — that country’s first and only execution since the 19th century.
The tiny Pyrenees principality, neutral in the continental war raging at that time, had many years before followed its neighbor Spain in adopting the garrote as its execution method. But the method being so long out of practice no satisfactory garrote executioner could be found to administer the punishment, so Areny was instead put to death by firing squad.
Andorra has the incidental distinction of being the last country in the world officially to discard the garrote as an execution method — in 1990, when Andoraa abolished the death penalty full stop.
On this day..
- Feast Day of Saint Justus
- 1769: Six at Tyburn, "most of them, sir, have never thought at all"
- 2016: Prince Turki bin Saud al-Kadir
- 1942: The Jews of Trunovskoye
- 1769: Six felons at Tyburn, keeping away thoughts of death
- 1862: Ten Confederate hostages in the Palmyra Massacre
- 1940: Hans Vollenweider, the last guillotined in Switzerland
- 1749: Bosavern Penlez, whorehouse expropriator
- 1985: Benjamin Moloise, revolutionary poet
- Themed Set: Illegitimate Power
- 1470: John Tiptoft, Butcher of England
- 1672: Thomas Rood, the only incest execution in America
- 31: Sejanus, captain of the Praetorian Guard