This guy goes right into the roster of all-time great gallows names, for it was said (per the New Orleans Daily True Delta of March 15, 1859, rhapsodically channeling a report from the Oxford (Mississippi) Mercury) that “the name of Pleasant M. Mask is only pronounced with a shudder” and that doesn’t seem right at all.

On this day..

• 1590: Christopher Bales, Nicholas Horner, and Alexander Blake
• 1957: Larbi Ben M'Hidi, in the Battle of Algiers
• 1685: Thomas Fallowfield at Leicester Square and numerous others at Tyburn
• 1864: Three Idaho robbers, choked on gold
• 1852: "Brown", lynched in California
• 2009: Abdullah Saleh Al-Kohali
• 1656: The Chief Black and White Eunuchs of Topkapi Palace
• 1561: Cardinal Carlo Carafa, papal nephew
• 1780: The slave Violet, her head stuck on a pole
• 1771: Green Tea Hag, the beginning of Dutch Learning
• 1870: Thomas Scott, "take me out of here or kill me"
• 1388: Thomas Usk, leaving "The Testament of Love"
• Themed Set: The Written Word