The New Newgate Calendar

Did you ever see a hangman tie a slipknot? I’ve seen it many a time and he winds, and he winds, After thirteen times he’s got a slipknot. It’s... read more »

On this date in 1904, Wang Weiqin, an official who killed two families, was put to death in Beijing by lingchi (slow slicing, or death by a thousand cuts).... read more »

Here are a few of the crime and history of crime stories I’ve spotted this month. Inside the revamped Bodmin jail, one of Britain’s ‘most... read more »

Tonight is Hallowe’en when the borders to the spirit world are at their thinnest and the dead walk the earth… Or it is All Hallow’s... read more »

O Thou unknown, Almighty Cause Of all my hope and fear? In whose dread presence, ere an hour Perhaps I must appear! If I have wander’d in those... read more »

Pirate Claus/Klaus Kniphoff was beheaded at Hamburg on this date in 1525. He was the stepson of the former mayor of Malmö, a Hanseatic port on the... read more »

At the start of this year, I began filming for a BBC Wales series that looks into cold cases from the country, with the hope that fresh eyes might be able... read more »

Neapolitan physician and scientist Domenico Cirillo was hanged on this date in 1799, for joining the abortive Parthenopean Republic. Statue of Cirillo... read more »

On this date in 1790, Samuel Hadlock hanged for a drunken murder committed on Mount Desert Island off the coast of Maine. This fantastic story was thoroughly... read more »

Russian linguist Nikolai Nikolayevich Durnovo was shot during Stalin’s purges on this date in 1937. The man descended from tsarist nobility —... read more »

Beheading of barrister Nicolas Gosson at Arras on October 26, 1578. Presently in France, this town at the time was in the Spanish Low Countries during... read more »

On this date in 1944, the Japanese occupying Indonesia executed Zainal Mustafa with 17 of his followers. The Javanese ulama had already been charged by... read more »

A 27-year-old railway worker named Luka Javorina was shot on this date in 1949 for workplace negligence resulting in a fatal train accident in Plavno,... read more »

[H]e was “not of any Business”, but had gone to the East-Indies and China as a servant to someone on board a ship, and had stayed there for... read more »

On this date in 1979, Jesse Bishop was gassed in Nevada. The third person executed under the “modern” U.S. death penalty regime — after... read more »

‘Head of a Drowned Man’ by Théodore Géricault Looking at unsolved cases from the Victorian era can be problematic in more ways... read more »

On this date in 1647, Francesco Toraldo was put to summary death by rebelling Neapolitans. Toraldo was a decorated commander during the Thirty Years’... read more »

On this date in 1526, Bianca Maria Gaspardone was beheaded at Milan’s Castello di Porta Giova, the present-day Castello Sforzesco. She was only about... read more »

From the Scottsbluff (Nebraska) Star Herald, October 19, 1928: Sharp Dies in Chair, Protesting Innocence Executed for Murder of Wife in 1926; Mother’s... read more »

October 18 is the feast date of early Christian (and possibly legendary) martyr-saint Justus of Beauvais. He’s supposed to have been decapitated... read more »

My first efforts at interactive data visualisations go back several years to some incredibly frustrating attempts to get the hang of D3.js. These were,... read more »

On this date in 1271, the Japanese Buddhist priest Nichiren was taken away to be executed by his political foes … only to find them spooked off... read more »

On this date in 1817, the Venezuelan revolutionary Simon Bolivar stained his hands with the execution of one of his great generals. Bust of Piar in Maturin,... read more »

Arthur Eggers was gassed in California on this date in 1948. He had murdered his wife in December 1945, using his carpenter’s tools to saw off her... read more »

On this date in 1780, American Revolution patriots hanged nine captive loyalist prisoners in North Carolina, in the wake of the Battle of King’s... read more »

On this date in 1998, Jeremy Vargas Sagastegui completed his suicide-by-executioner. Babysitting on November 19, 1995, for a friend in the small town of... read more »

One year ago today, Rojava political figure Hervin Khalaf was killed by summary execution. A Syrian Kurd whose family counts several martyrs to that people’s... read more »

On this date in 1843, the Cherokee nation in Oklahoma hanged Jacob West for an election-related murder. The affair was part of the bloody factional conflict... read more »

Posted by Krista J. Kesselring; 11 October 2020. ‘A good Husband would not desire the Power of Horse-whipping, confining, Half-starving his Wife,... read more »

From Servants of Satan: The Age of the Witch Hunts: Another surviving letter from a condemned witch to her husband comes from Ellwangen in 1614. Magdalena... read more »

Two contrasting cases today – both involving violence and both from 1880. The first of these brought Daniel McCarthy to court at the Guildhall in... read more »

Two Sikh militants of the Khalistan Commando Force were hanged on this date in 1992 at Pune for assassinating the India army chief who conducted Operation... read more »

Turkey’s “September 12” military junta — which had taken power in a coup on that day — hanged Necdet Adali on this date in... read more »

Wisconsin Street in Milwaukee, 1900 (Library Of Congress) It was often assumed, certainly in the British press, that violent crime was class-related: it... read more »

On this date in 1938, Adam “Eddie” Richetti was gassed for a notorious gangland bloodbath, the Kansas City Massacre. Whether he was actually... read more »

Hungarian pharmacist Tibor Mikulich was hanged on this date in 1960. Mikulich was an army lieutenant in 1944, who became part of the circle of officers... read more »

Spanish conquistador Jorge Robeldo was beheaded on this date in 1546 Robeldo (English Wikipedia entry | the more detailed Spanish) emerges onto history’s... read more »

On this date in 1989, Panamanian Gen. Moises Giroldi Vera was shot in the San Miguelito barracks for his coup attempt the previous day. With tensions mounting... read more »

On this date in 1845 — sneering at the noose with the words “Behold the necklace of a whore!” — Abner Baker was publicly hanged... read more »

October 2 is the feast date of Saint Eleutherius of Nicomedia,* a martyr circa 303 who was accused of trying to burn down the palace of the Christian-persecuting... read more »

Erna Dorn was executed in secret in Dresden, East Germany on this date in 1953. Dorn (English Wikipedia entry | German) had been a typist in Gestapo headquarters... read more »