Dennis Nugent was hanged on this date in 1798 for raping an eight-year-old girl — a crime whose particulars were so revolting that “The Court ordered that the evidence upon this trial should not be published.”

Bell’s Weekly Messenger, Sept. 23, 1798

Nugent denied committing the crime all the way to the end.

Part of the Themed Set: Sexual Deviance.

On this day..

• 1499: Edward, Earl of Warwick, the last Plantagenet claimant
• 1857: Two surviving members of the Aiken Party
• 1405: Astorre I Manfredi, former lord of Faenza
• 764: St. Stephen the Younger, iconodule martyr
• 2006: Sanjaya Rowan Kumara, with "signs of life"
• 2008: Wo Weihan, spy?
• 1828: James "Little Jim" Guild
• 1721: Cartouche, French bandit
• 1783: Johanna Catharina Höhn, by Goethe's vote
• 1871: Louis Rossel, Théophile Ferré, and Sergeant Bourgeois, Communards
• 1950: James Corbitt, the hangman's mate
• 1922: Six Greek former ministers of state