The New Newgate Calendar

This week, just ahead of the next round of marking that will fall due in mid July, I’ve managed to return to my current research project. Nether... read more »

Errol Morris’s classic 1988 docudrama The Thin Blue Line helped to exonerate former death row inmate Randall Dale Adams.* He’d been convicted... read more »

Not as many interesting crime history stories this month as previously, but here are a couple that I’ve read over the last few weeks. The cold case... read more »

On this date in 1938, Zionist terrorist Shlomo Ben-Yosef was hanged by the British. Shalom Tabachnik — to use the name he had from his childhood... read more »

On this date in 1748, three instigators of a riot hanged in an Amsterdam public square, while worse fates befell those who came to see it. It was only... read more »

Es algo formidable que vio la vieja raza: robusto tronco de árbol al hombro de un campeón salvaje y aguerrido, cuya fornida maza blandiera... read more »

John Hartfield (sometimes given as “Hartsfield”) was lynched on this date in 1919 in Ellisville, Mississippi. “[U.S. President Woodrow... read more »

I’m sure we have all had to put up with annoying disturbances at some point in our lives; last year an inconsiderate neighbour chose to party hard... read more »

On this date in 1950, the opening salvos of the Korean War were fired … and behind North Korea’s lines, in Richard E. Kim‘s novel The... read more »

On this date in 1958, itinerant carpenter Raymond John Bailey was hanged for one of Australia’s most sensational crimes. This case derives its gloomy... read more »

Spanish officer Toribio Martinez Cabrera was executed on this date in 1939 by Franco’s Spain. An army lifer who had cut his teeth fighting in Cuba... read more »

On this date in 1918, Captain Alexey Schastny received the cold thanks of the Bolshevik government for saving its Baltic fleet. Icebound in the city of... read more »

(Thanks to Richard Clark of Capital Punishment U.K. for the guest post, a reprint of an article originally published on that site with some explanatory... read more »

Five Jesuits were hanged at Tyburn on this date in 1679, in the largest single mass execution of England’s “Popish Plot” hysteria. This... read more »

Hiba Al Akkad (standing) embracing her famous mother. Mahmoud Al Issawi was hanged at Wadi el-Natrun prison outside Cairo on this date in 2014. In... read more »

In what felt like week 9,000 of lockdown I was contacted by a fellow Sunderland Uni graduate (Bridget Hamilton, a radio production MA) with an intriguing... read more »

On this date in 1485, the German warrior William de La Marck was beheaded at Maastricht. “There is, moreover, in the land, a nobleman of good descent,... read more »

From the Newgate Calendar: THOMAS QUIN, JOSEPH DOWDELL, AND THOMAS TALBOT A Gang of Notorious Thieves, executed at Tyburn, June 17, 1751, for robbery.... read more »

(Thanks to Edward Waldo Emerson, the son of transcendentalist chin-wagger Ralph Waldo Emerson, for the guest post. His account of the beloved Massachusetts... read more »

Sweden conducted its last witch execution — a beheading — on this date in 1704. Anna Eriksdotter (English Wikipedia entry | Swedish) was a... read more »

According to Amnesty International’s death penalty news, Executions [in Qatar] resumed after 12 years when two men and a woman, all Indian nationals,... read more »

Anthony Nott, 2020, Investigating the Almost Perfect Murders: the case of Russell Causley and other crimes, Barnsley, Pen and Sword. 197pp, £14.99.... read more »

Ben W. Johnson, 2016, Charlie Peace: Murder, Mayhem and the Master of Disguise, Barnsley,Pen and Sword; 157 pages, £12.99. Reviewed by Dr... read more »

Disease as a battle is a weak and overused analogy. Fortitude, bravery and a moral cause are of no benefit when the diagnosis is cancer or some intractable... read more »

On this date in 1677, Benjamin Tuttle expiated the murder of his sister Sarah in New Haven, Connecticut. His parents, William and Elizabeth, were yeomen... read more »

By Cassie Watson; posted 13 June 2020. At a time when none of us can go to any archive, I decided to investigate the online contents of collections made... read more »

On the 15 May Ann Fadden was standing outside her front door, at one in the morning, as her brother Jeremiah Coghlan came by with a friend that he lodged... read more »

John Dand hanged at Manchester’s Strangeways Prison on this date in 1951 — because of spat over £3. Dand and his victim, 72-year-old... read more »

Charles Souvay in “The French Papal States during the Revolution” (The Catholic Historical Review, January 1923) describes the violent reunion... read more »

I thought I’d try something different today: I’ve been researching some different crime cases that are linked by their location – they... read more »

On this date in 1996, a Chinese Mongol with the singular name of Huugjilt was executed by gunshot for rape and murder at Hohhot. With benefit of hindsight,... read more »

This blog is normally concerned with the police courts of nineteenth-century London. It may therefore seem a world away from the current Black Lives Matter... read more »

This terse report of loose ends tied — so they hoped — hails from the Encyclopedic Dictionary of Conflict and Conflict Resolution, 1945-1996:... read more »

On this date in 1967, during the Six-Day War between Israel and Egypt, Israeli warplanes and torpedo boats assailed the USS Liberty, an allied American... read more »

A batch of Nazi war criminals highlighted by four condemned at the Einsatzgruppen trial hanged at Germany’s Landsberg Prison on this date in 1951.... read more »

“I was here at the last execution, as free as any one of you, and little thought of this my unhappy fate. God grant you all more grace than I have... read more »

The church of St Lawrence Jewry in the 1930s William Dell was having a bad day and it was about to get worse. In the first week of June 1869 he had been... read more »

On this date* in 1825, Greek revolutionary Odysseus (or Odysseas) Androutsos was summarily executed as a traitor by his comrades. Fruit of Ithaca like... read more »

Sardinian scholar Sigismondo Arquer was burned at the stake in Toledo, Spain, on this date in 1571. Born in the capital of Spanish-governed Sardinia, this... read more »

The village of Navenby, Lincolnshire, home of the Parr family This isn’t a crime, but a horrible accident, and one that must have lived with one... read more »

On this date in 1453, Loukas Notaras, the last megas doux of the freshly destroyed Byzantine Empire, was executed at the command of Mehmed the Conqueror.... read more »

Welsh lord Rhys ap Maredudd was executed as a traitor at York on this date in 1292, for leading a failed rebellion in his homeland. Rhys ruled the Cantref... read more »

On this date in 1868, disgraced Australian gold commissioner Thomas Griffin was hanged for murdering two police escorts in the course of a robbery. He... read more »