East German frigate captain Winfried Baumann was shot on this date in 1980 as a spy.

He and a collaborator, Dr. Christa-Karin Schumann,* were caught by the prolific DDR mail surveillance program dropping messages for the West German Federal Intelligence Service. (This Bundesnachrichtendienst, originally founded in 1956, remains unified Germany’s intelligence agency today.) East Germany’s last executioner Hermann Lorenz carried out the sentence by shooting at Leipzig Prison.

On this day..

• 1743: The Black Watch mutineers
• 1726: Franz Laubler, Hermann Joachim Hahn's murderer
• 1888: Two in New Jersey, by father and son hangmen
• 1741: Othello, Doctor Harry, and five other New York slaves
• 1707: John Whittingham
• 1801: Chloe
• 2003: Lehlohonolo Bernard Kobedi
• 1936: Virgilio Leret, the first shot in the Spanish Civil War
• 1300: Gerard Segarelli, Apostolic Brethren founder
• 1943: Eight from the Krasnodar Trials
• 1865: Chief Ahan of the Tsilhqot’in
• 2007: Not Sina Paymard, saved by a flute