The New Newgate Calendar

The Sultan, seated on a golden throne, receives the homage of the viziers and the beys, massacre of 2,000 prisoners, the rain falls in torrents. -Sultain... read more »

I went to see the RSC's The Roaring Girl, directed by Jo Davies, recently - and was rather unimpressed by its assertion that this Jacobean play - and petty... read more »

(Thanks to Meaghan Good of the Charley Project for the guest post. -ed.) On August 30, 1878, Sevier (aka Severe, Savier) Lewis was hanged in Empire City,... read more »

August 29 is a National Day of Commemoration in El Salvador, honoring the execution on this date in 1865 of the country’s beloved ex-president Gerardo... read more »

The second of my posts from Cornwall. Sometimes it is clear that an individual cannot be held responsible for their actions, however, inexplicable that... read more »

On this date in 1948 at stately Akershus Fortress, a firing squad carried out the last execution in Norwegian history — that of Ragnar Skancke. Skancke... read more »

On this date in 1610, the priest Roger Cadwallador was hanged, drawn, and quartered in Herefordshire, where he had maintained an illicit Catholic ministry... read more »

Nuremberg bookseller Johann Philipp Palm was shot on this date in 1806 for publishing a manifesto against the French occupation. For centuries a proud... read more »

Several new pieces ready to post would be insensitive in the light of recent incidents involving an American journalist. Instead, here is a more 'light-hearted',... read more »

It has been a long time since I have posted on this website, but that is because I have been hard at work writing my next book. Now, I am thrilled to... read more »

Seventy years ago today, the British in Delhi hanged Gurkha soldier Durga Malla for spying against them — and on behalf of the army of the Japanese-backed... read more »

By blogging for a public audience, historians of crime are contributing to popular representations of the 'criminal' past, from the many websites, dramas... read more »

(Thanks to Robert Elder of Last Words of the Executed — the blog, and the book — for the guest post. Fans of this here site are highly likely... read more »

(Thanks to Meaghan Good of the Charley Project for the guest post. -ed.) On Tuesday, the 23rd inst., Harriet, slave of JAMES H. SHEPPERD, JR., aged about... read more »

Hay-making, from Birket Foster’s ‘Pictures of English Landscape’, 1863 (Internet Archive Book Image) On the night of 25 July 1833, the... read more »

The first of two posts to mark my recent holiday in Cornwall…and neither of them is related to smuggling! St Ives In 1842, two boys, James Stevens,... read more »

On this date in 1879, three Russian nihilists were hanged for an attempted regicide. Revolutionary nihilism flowered in 1870s Russia; in the words of the... read more »

Blogging carnivals, like those hosted by Sharon Howard, began to appear in the early 2000s. The carnivalesque is a suggestive way of thinking about the... read more »

On this date in 1851, the domestic abuser John McCaffary (or McCaffrey) was publicly hanged in Kenosha, Wisconsin.* His crime — singularly ill-concealed... read more »

On this date in 1897,* anarchist Michele Angiolillo was garroted in Vergara prison for assassinating the Spanish Prime Minister. Angiolillo (English Wikipedia... read more »

On this date in 1738, the last victims of witch trials in the Lower Rhine were burned att the stake in Gerresheim, an ancient German city today subsumed... read more »

This is a draft of the first part of a short article I’m writing on blogging the history of crime. It’s for a special issue of the online journal... read more »

At some point around August 476 — the exact date(s) lost to history — the deposed Eastern Roman Emperor Basiliscus was executed most cruelly... read more »

(Thanks to Harry Brodribb Irving for the guest post, originally published in his Book of Remarkable Criminals. Some formatting has been adjusted for readability.... read more »

(Thanks to Meaghan Good of the Charley Project for the guest post. -ed.) On this day in 1883, Chinese immigrant Ah Yung, aka Ah Kee, was hanged in Missoula,... read more »

Three centuries ago today, Wallachian prince Constantine Brancoveanu was beheaded in Istanbul with his four sons. Brancoveanu (English Wikipedia entry... read more »

On this date in 1793, Walter Clark was executed for burglary at Morpeth, with one Margaret Dunn. Clark rates a mention in the spirit of the apple not falling... read more »

One hundred fifty years ago today, Barney Gibbons was executed by musketry by the Civil War Union army in St. Louis, Missouri. Gibbons was among the many... read more »

On this day fifty years ago, the last hangings in the UK took place. To mark this anniversary, here's Criminal Historian's list of key dates in the history... read more »

New York’s electric chair handled record traffic on this date in 1912: seven successive electrocutions. The first two men committed unrelated and... read more »

(Thanks to Meaghan Good of the Charley Project for the guest post. -ed.) On this date in 1838, a teenage slave girl named Mary was hanged in Crawford County,... read more »

Atop a hill called steng Cross at the Northumberland village of Elsdon stands an eerie heirloom of England’s gallows history: Winter’s Gibbet.... read more »

Cultural change and technological change are linked in complex ways. We are currently facing the cultural implications of the exponential growth of digital... read more »

On this date in 1849, the German revolutionary Friedrich Neff was shot at Freiburg. A law and philosophy student, Neff had been one of the firebrands of... read more »

Letters to the editors of Victorian newspapers are often fascinating insights into the minds of our 19th century forebears. This one, from 1842, caught... read more »

On this date in 1570, the English Catholic martyr John Felton suffered hanging, disemboweling, and quartering at St. Paul’s Churchyard in London... read more »

An interim post to say sorry for the lack of a new piece - and some news by way of an explanation. My new book, Bloody British History: Salisbury (published... read more »

On this date in 2009, China executed Li Peiying, the former chairman of a vast airport conglomerate that managed, among many others, Beijing Capital International... read more »

'Life should mean life' is a popular adage that you might overhear in a pub, on public transport, even in the queue at the supermarket. It is hard to judge... read more »

On August 6, 1788, “John and Robert Winter, the father and son, were executed at Morpeth, pursuant to their sentence, for breaking open the house... read more »

Thieving in Bloody Code England was quite often a family affair. For a few scattered posts this August we will revisit an extended clan of vagabond Northumberland... read more »

I did not set out to blog slowly. Today the blogosphere is one of the most productive and inspiring places for writers and researchers to think and work.... read more »

From 7 to 8 p.m. on the evening of August 5, 1943 the Fallbeil at Plotzensee Prison destroyed 17 members of the Berlin Red Orchestra resistance circle. We... read more »

I think about my grandfather every day. Not surprising as I’m currently writing a book about him. However, as he served in the British Expeditionary... read more »

There’s a good chance that you experience an unpleasant degree of performance pressure from time to time in your environs, whatever they might be.... read more »

It was 21 May 1766, a Wednesday, and Sarah Mayes was tired. She and her husband, Arthur, had been travelling from Cheltenham to their home in Chipping... read more »

On this date in 1530, Francesco Ferruccio (or just Ferrucci) and his executioner Fabrizio Maramaldo clinched their immortality at the Battle of Gavinana. The... read more »

On this date in 2005, U.S. journalist Stephen Vincent was abducted off the streets of Basra by a Shia militia. Before the day was out, he had been extrajudicially... read more »

On this date in 1548, the Calvinist evangelist Robert de Lievre — better known by his nom de prosélytisme Seraphin d’Argences, or as Antoine... read more »