The human body can be a hardy creature, resistant to the best-calculated plans to kill it … and the ignominy of scaffold work has seen many an amateurish headsman trod the boards.

Between the two, we reap a cornucopia of botched executions that practically seem more normal than the “successful” ones.

A few data points to that effect in these next four executions over four different centuries: no mere miscalculated drop from the scaffold, but horrifically grim pratfalls to mock the solemnity of the proceedings and leave egg on the executioner’s face.

Still, if you think that’s bad, you should see the other guy.

• July 12: William Fly
• July 13: Thomas Egan
• July 14: Horace Franklin Dunkins, Jr.
• July 15: James Scott, Duke of Monmouth

On this day..

• 1822: Gullah Jack
• 1391: Amerigot Marcel, cast down
• 1758: Not Florence Hensey, Seven Years' War spy
• 2008: Two alleged prostitutes, by the Taliban
• 1995: Boris Dekanidze, the last in Lithuania
• 1936: Earl Gardner
• Themed Set: Meaghan Good (II)
• 2013: Zeng Chengjie, China's Bernie Madoff
• 1960: Manfred Smolka, East German border guard
• 1833: Frankie Silver, Morganton legend
• 2006: Rocky Barton, suicidal
• 1916: Cesare Battisti and Fabio Filzi
• 1537: Robert Aske, for the Pilgrimage of Grace
• 1726: William Fly, unrepentant pirate