Category: History
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Michael Manning – Last to hang in the Irish Republic.
Michael Manning was the last prisoner executed in the Republic of Ireland, ending a centuries-old tradition of executions in the Emerald Isle and another tradition of their being performed almost entirely by British executioners. Michael Manning’s case was the last time a group of officials would assemble at Dublin’s Mountjoy Prison at 8am in the…
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America’s First Trial by TV: The Bombing of Flight 629
At Denver’s Stapleton Airport, United Airlines Flight 629 bound for Alaska is cleared for take-off at 6:52 p.m. on November 1, 1955, 15 minutes after its scheduled departure time the “Mainliner” makes a perfectly normal take-off and disappears out of sight. Eleven minutes later it explodes near the town of Longmont and wreckage is strewn…
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On This Day in 1945 – Pvt. George Edward Smith, on VE Day.
VE (Victory in Europe) marked the official end of hostilities in the European theatre of operations and probably the largest, most joyous celebration in human history.Unless, of course, you happened to be former US Army Air Forces Private George Edward Smith. While most of the rest of the world basked in the joy of victory and the relief…
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On This Day in 1893 – Morphine murderer Carlyle Harris, his last mile and his last laugh.
When Buchanan entered the condemned cells at Sing Sing he was probably a little embarrassed to finally meet the ‘stupid amateur’ and ‘bungling fool’ he’d so disastrously mocked. Buchanan had had the first laugh. Harris laughed last and longest, but had little time left to do it.
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Old Sparky and the firing squad – South Carolina doubles down. Again.
Whether South Carolina, bastion of tobacco country, will allow the traditional last cigarette before a firing squad is open to question. The condemned will likely smoke either way.
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On This Day in 1960 – Caryl Chessman, the ‘Red Light Bandit,’ enters San Quentin’s ‘smokehouse.’
Seldom has a condemned convict made the cover of Time magazine, an honour usually reserved for more famous and less notorious individuals, but Caryl Whittier Chessman was no ordinary convict. Whether he really was California’s notorious ‘Red Light Bandit’ is still debated today, decades after he entered the gas chamber at San Quentin. What could…
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On This Day in 1916 – Charles Sprague, last man to die at Auburn Prison.
On August 6, 1890 Auburn Prison in upstate New York made history. William Kemmler, drunkard, vegetable-seller and killer, became the first prisoner to die in the electric chair. Bungled though it was (George Westinghouse remarked it could have been done better with an axe, Kemmler’s chosen weapon) the era of ‘electrical execution’ had begun. Despite…