Last year on this date, an astonishing scene unfolded at a public hanging in Mashhad, near the Iran-Afghanistan border.
Vahid Zare, a robber who murdered a young military conscript pursuing him, was the man due for execution.
Moments after he was dropped and began strangling, the family of his victim pardoned him — their right under Iranian law. Zare was immediately rescued mid-hanging, and his executioner helped him off the gallows for transportation to a local hospital.
The graphic pictures that follow tell an astonishing story.
On this day..
- 1811: Arthur William Hodge, brutal slaveowner
- 1643: Philippe Giroux, former president of the Dijon Parlement
- 1916: Eamonn Ceannt, Michael Mallin, Con Colbert, and Sean Heuston
- 1679: La Bosse, Poison Affair culprit
- 1805: Not Bartlett Ambler, possible buggerer
- 1945: Pvt. George Edward Smith, on VE Day
- 1885: Mose Caton, beastly husband
- 1979: Twenty-one by revolutionary courts of the Iranian Revolution
- Daily Double: The Iranian Revolution
- 1788: Archibald Taylor, but not Joseph Taylor
- 1951: Willie McGee
- 1794: Antoine Laurent Lavoisier, father of modern chemistry
- Daily Double: Revolutionary Justice
- 1948: U Saw and the assassins of Aung San
- 1887: Alexander Ilyich Ulyanov, Lenin's brother