The New Newgate Calendar

On Leap Day in 2016, the bodyguard-turned-assassin of Punjab governor Salman Taseer was hanged for murder. A longtime activist of the center-left Pakistan... read more »

Ohio State University professor Dr. James Howard Snook was electrocuted on this date in 1930. The eggheaded veterinary lecturer, Snook was an Olympic... read more »

Tomorrow is the last day of February meaning that (as we do every four years) we get a 29thday of this month. Did you know that 1888 was a leap year? Making... read more »

Here are some of the stories related to the history of crime that I’ve found interesting this month. Lancashire true crime: the grizzly murders... read more »

(Thanks to India revolutionary Bhagat Singh — himself soon to become an Executed Today client — for the guest post. It was originally published... read more »

On this date in 1947, Lithuanian anti-Soviet partisan Jonas Noreika was executed in Moscow. Memorial plaque honoring Jonas Noreika in Vilnius; it was... read more »

This jaw-dropping story, reported here via an Amnesty International report, made the rounds of international press and appears to be well-founded —... read more »

Did you watch the recent BBC drama, The Pale Horse? It is an adaptation of Agatha Christie’s 1961 murder mystery in which a dying woman leaves a... read more »

Text from New Zealand’s Pardon for Soldiers of the Great War Act of 2000. Spencer was one of four New Zealand enlistees shot for cowardice during... read more »

Second-century Christian bishop and martyr St. Polycarp of Smyrna has his feast day on February 23. Be sure to shout supplications loudly, as he’s... read more »

Collaborationist French journalist Jean Luchaire was shot on this date in 1946. Fortuitously just too young for the trenches of the Great War, Luchaire... read more »

There have been plenty of examples in the pages of this blog of quite stark reminders that the past was ‘a different country’. Periodically... read more »

Bavarian bandit Mathias Kneissl was beheaded by the fallbeil guillotine in an Augsburg prison on the morning of February 21, 1903. Kneißl/Kneissl... read more »

By Sara M. Butler; posted 21 February 2020. A recent article in the Journal of Legal History by Gwen Seabourne addresses one of the more unusual requirements... read more »

Last year on this date, nine men purportedly involved in the 2015 car bomb assassination of Egyptian prosecutor general Hisham Barakat were hanged at a... read more »

On this date in 1803, robber Mathias Weber was guillotined. “Fetzer” made a scintillating career in brigandage in 1790s Rhineland —... read more »

On this date in 1935, Germany conducted its last axe-beheadings. The axees were impecunious noblewomen Benita von Falkenhayn (English Wikipedia entry |... read more »

(Thanks to Henry-Clement Sanson for the guest post. The former executioner — the last of his illustrious dynasty comprising six generations of bourreaux... read more »

Finnish parliamentarian Herman Hurmevaara was shot during Stalin’s purges on this date in 1938. Hurmevaara (English Wikipedia entry | the more detailed... read more »

On this date in 1946,* communist Albania executed three former officials of its deposed wartime government. Fascist Italy occupied Albania during World... read more »

In my last post I started walking the streets of East London with Charles Booth’s poverty survey as my guide. Moving on from Gunthorpe and Flower... read more »

On 28 ?afar 423 — that’s 14 February 1032 — Hasanak the Vizier was executed by strangulation in Herat, in modern-day Afghanistan. He... read more »

Guest post by Anna Boeles Rowland and Chanelle Delameillieure, 14 February 2020 “More things are necessary for a household than four naked thighs.”[1]... read more »

On this date in 1879, Sweden conducted its first private execution, that of Anders Larsson. Executioner Johan Fredrik Hjort. Deep in the 19th century’s... read more »

Adele Millet was 35 years old, and facing upheaval in her life. She had recently separated from her husband, and no longer lived in the family home, instead... read more »

January 17, 1728: Joseph Barret, of St. Giles’s in the Fields, was indicted for the Murder of James Barret, (his Son, aged 11) by flinging him down,... read more »

On this date in 1918, four sailors who were ringleaders of a failed Austrian naval mutiny were executed at the Montenegrin port of Kotor. It’s been... read more »

Italian partisan Giovanni Cerbai was shot on this date in 1945. A communist who fought in the Garibaldi Battalion during the Spanish Civil War, “Giannetto”... read more »

(Thanks for the guest post to Roman Senator and historian Tacitus. It originally appeared in Book IV, Chapter 34 of his Annals, and concerns the undated... read more »

On this date in 1943, young Yugoslav partisan Lepa Svetozara Radic went to a German gallows. A Bosnian Serb — her village today lies in Bosnia and... read more »

This week I took myself down to East London to stretch my legs walking around the area that has become synonymous with the ‘Jack the Ripper’... read more »

Blake was a 29 year old unemployed steel erector who married Jenny Whitehead on the 17th of October 1934 at a Leeds Registry Office. On that same day,... read more »

Among its many other wonders, you can find a marvellous run of 16th- and 17th-century CSPD on the Internet Archive. But they’re not consistently... read more »

On this date in 1927, Catholic padre Mateo Correa Magallanes was martyred during Mexico’s brutal Cristero war. We’ve previously noted the bloody... read more »

A short tale from 1841 about a female scammer playing on the emotions of her gender… BEGGING IMPOSTOR. A woman named Jones was last week brought... read more »

On this date in 2013, the longest-serving (or -waiting) condemned prisoner in Saudi Arabia was beheaded for a murder committed 32 years prior. Per media... read more »

On this date in 1820, six pirates of the brig William hanged at the Maltese capital Valletta. This vessel had the previous July departed her Liverpool... read more »

James Stephens hanged in New York on this date in 1860, for poisoning his wife. We’ve referenced passingly a number of 19th century hangings on then-trendy... read more »

This gentleman is far from antiquity’s most distinguished Christian martyr, but a site such as Executed Today can scarcely omit the sacrifice of... read more »

A call back to the sadly demobilized crime blog CLEWS for the double execution on this date in 1927 of Louisiana adulterous lovers Ada Bonner LeBoeuf and... read more »