On this date in 1949, the Romanian anti-communist partisan Nicolae Dabija (English Wikipedia entry | Romanian) was shot at Sibiu, along with six other members* of that resistance.

Although cousin to Romania’s pre-Ceausescu Communist ruler Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej, Dabija — not to be confused with the 19th century general of that name nor with the latter-day Moldova M.P. of the same name — charted a distinctly separate ideological course.

He was decorated for his service on the Axis’s Eastern Front during World War II, but this same credential got him expelled from the army in the postwar Red takeover.

Nothing daunted, Dabija and some like-minded comrades** formed an armed anti-communist militia a few dozen strong in Transylvania’s Apuseni Mountains named the National Defense Front, Haiducian Corps — a nod to the Balkans’ historical outlaws/rebels. The Securitate reduced them over the course of 1948-1949 months, culminating in a March 3-4, 1949 forest battle that brought Dabija et al into custody.

* Ioan Scridon, Traian Mihaltan, Titus Onea, Augustin Ratiu, Gheorghe Oprita, Silvestru Bolfea. (Source)

** Brothers with the apt surname Macavei.

On this day..

• 1790: Samuel Hadlock, Mount Desert Island murderer
• 1985: Joachim Knychala, the Vampire of Bytom
• 1784: Dirick Grout and Francis Coven, Boston burglars
• 1996: Arshad Jameel, military man
• 1859: Thomas Ferguson, but not on a Sunday
• 1816: Francisco Jose de Caldas, wise person
• Sometime around 19 AD: Some wicked priests of Isis (... allegedly)
• Feast Day of St. Jude
• 1628: John Felton, assassin of the Duke of Buckingham
• 1941: Twenty Red Army officers
• 2008: Michitoshi Kuma, "It can't be undone now"
• 1839: Sebastien-Benoit Peytel, notwithstanding Balzac