Tag: New Mexico
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On This Day in 1881, Billy the Kid cheats the hangman.
John Wesley Hardin. Jesse James. Cole Younger. “Curly” Bill Brocius. Gunslingers, killers, thieves and icons of the Wild West. Of all the Western outlaws none has quite the notoriety of “Billy the Kid.” Questionably accused of killing 21 men (one for each year of his short and violent life), Billy is as much a Wild…
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Frank Rimieri, Adolph Koenig and Doctor Allan Mclane Hamilton – A dark day that cast a very long shadow…
When Frank Rimieri and Adolph Koenig rode the lightning at Sing Sing on 20 February 1905 that was nothing unusual in itself. First used on William Kemmler on 6 August 1890, New York’s electric chair was already seeing regular use. Single and double executions like this one were standard practice and New York, already enthralled…
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On This Day in 1851 – Josefa ‘Juanita’ Segovia, rough justice or legal lynching?
Present-day California is often seen as the most liberal, tolerant state in the Union. It‘s sold with images of sunshine, surfing, and hippies; a relaxed, easy-going kind of place where, within reason, anything goes. This is a fallacy. While 1967 might have been California’s ‘Summer of Love’ July of 1851 wasn’t. Certainly not for…
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On This Day in 1890; William Kemmler – The World’s First Legal Electrocution.
August 6, 1890 saw the dawn of a new age for criminal history. At Auburn Prison in upstate New York there was the execution.of one William Kemmler, condemned for murdering girlfriend Matilda Ziegler with a hatchet. There was nothing remarkable about Kemmler (an alcoholic vegetable hawker with a vicious temper) or about his crime. There…
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Famous (and not so famous) Last Words.
A person’s last words are often revealing, telling us something about them and their outlook on the life. Coming, as they do, right before that person’s death, it often doesn’t really matter to that person what they say or how it’s interpreted afterwards. From the intentionally funny (gangster George Appel), to the philosophical (spy Mata…
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Happy Birthday, ‘Doc’ Holliday, Born Today In 1851.
Wyat Earp on ‘Doc’ Holliday: “The nerviest, speediest, deadliest man with a six-gun that I ever knew.” ‘Doc’ (when asked whether his conscience troubled him): “I coughed that up with my lungs, years ago…” John Henry ‘Doc’ Holliday, born in Griffin Georgia today in 1851, died in Glenwood, Colorado on November…
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