On this date in 1853, Hungarian patriot-priest Gasparich Mark Kilit was executed by the Austrian empire for his part in the failed revolutions of 1848-1849.

Gasparich — it’s a Hungarian link, as are most sources about the man — was a Franciscan who served as a camp priest to the nationalist insurgents under Perczel, who made him a Major.

After the revolutions were defeated and suppressed, he managed to live a couple of years under a pseudonym. But, writing for a Hungarian newspaper and dabbling with new radical movements, he was hardly keeping his head down. He’d even become a socialist on top of everything else. Captured late in 1852, Gasparich’s fate might have been sealed by the early 1853 attempted assassination of Emperor Franz Joseph and the resulting pall of state security.

Gasparich was hanged at a pig field outside Bratislava in the early hours of September 2, 1853.

A street and a monument in Zalaegerszeg, the capital of the man’s native haunts, preserve Gasparich’s name for the ages.

On this day..

• 2014: Steven Sotloff, two lives
• 1937: Alexander Shlyapnikov, Workers' Opposition leader
• 1942: Tom Williams, IRA martyr
• 1778: Samuel Lyons and Samuel Ford, Fort Mifflin deserters
• 1914: Eugene Odent, the mayor of Senlis
• 1944: Olavi Laiho, the last Finn executed in Finland
• Daily Double: The last executions in Finland
• 1887: Josiah Terrill, "I ain't guilty of this here charge"
• 1944: Six Milice collaborators in France
• 1772: Moses Paul
• 1983: Jimmy Lee Gray, drunk-gassed
• 1685: Dame Alice Lisle, first victim of the Bloody Assizes
• 1724: Half-Hangit Maggie Dickson
• Themed Set: Judging Abortion