On this date in 1915, Wenseslao Moguel, a soldier of Pancho Villa during the Mexican Revolution, was captured and immediately stood in front of a firing squad.

Miraculously, Moguel survived their volley, and even survived the coup de grace shot to the head afterwards delivered by the squad’s commander.

Although badly disfigured, he managed to crawl away from the execution grounds and went on to live a full life with the nickname El Fusilado (“the executed one”). He died around 1975.

In 1937, Wenseslao Moguel appeared on the Ripley’s Believe It Or Not! radio program.

On this day..

• 1871: Generals Lecomte and Thomas, at the birth of the Paris Commune
• 1696: Charnock, King, and Keyes, frustrated of regicide
• 1563: Jean de Poltrot, assassin of the Duke of Guise
• 1752: Helen Torrence and Jean Waldie
• 2015: Nine more in Pakistan
• 1905: An unknown spy in the Russo-Japanese War
• 1825: Peggy Facto, Plattsburgh infanticide
• 2010: Paul Warner Powell, jurisprudentially confused
• 1647: Mary Martin, infanticide
• 1314: Jacques de Molay, last Templar Grand Master
• 1789: Catherine Murphy, Britain's last burning at the stake
• 1741: Jenny Diver, a Bobby Darin lyric?