On this date in 1655, Grete Adrian heard her final condemnation as a witch, then was ushered to the marketplace of Ruethen where she was beheaded and burned.

A remarried widow, Grete was the daughter of a woman who in her own day had been suspected of witchcraft; Grete had lost siblings to witch-hunts during the recent Thirty Years War.

The family history with devilry would help to implicate her when allegations arose that she had produced milk by conjuration and turned into a wolf to kill a neighbor’s horse. Grete didn’t stand up to the torture very long; within a couple of days she agreed that she had taken the devil as a lover, cast malevolent spells, attended witches’ covens, and all the usual Hexenprozesse stuff. All she asked was for quick execution.

In 2011, schoolchildren from Ruethen’s Friedrich-Spee-School — its namesake was a noted critic of torture and witch trials in the 17th century — successfully petitioned local authorities to issue a blanket posthumous pardon for 169 men, women and children executed for witchcraft between 1573 and 1660 … Grete Adrian included.

On this day..

• 1945: Harold Pringle, the last Canadian military execution
• 2010: Akram al-Samawi
• 1530: Johnnie Armstrong, border reiver
• 1723: Thomas Athoe the Elder, and Thomas Athoe the Younger
• 1453: The garrison of Poucques, Jacques de Lalaing's cannonball killers
• 2007: Jafar Kiani, stoned
• 1731: Jose de Antequera, Paraguayan comunero rebel
• 1691: Jack Collet, sacrilegious burglar
• 1983: Aleksandr Kravchenko, in Chikatilo's place
• 1917: Gasim, by Lawrence of Arabia
• 1600: Jean Livingston, Lady Waristoun
• Themed Set: The Ballad
• 1947: Ding Mocun, not as hot a lay in real life