Bizarre Execution -Facts

[Marie5656]

Bizarre Execution -------------------+

FACTS

The last public execution in America was the hanging of a

22-year-old black man named Rainey Bethea. He was executed

at Owensboro, KY, in 1936 after being convicted of killing

a 70-year-old white women. Twenty thousand people showed up

to witness the execution.

The last person hanged in the U.S. for being a pirate was

Capt. Nathaniel Gordon, in New York City on March 8, 1862.

Gordon had been smuggling slaves into the US.

The last person to be burned at the stake was Phoebe

Harrius. Harrius was convicted of coining false money and

was burned at the stake in front of Newgate Prison in

England in 1786.

The last public execution by guillotine was on June 17,

1939. Eugen Weidman was executed before a large crowd

in Versailles, France. The last nonpublic use of the

guillotine in France, at Baumetes Prison, in Marsailles,

was the execution of convicted murderer Hamida Djandoubi,

a Tunisian immigrant, on September 10, 1977.

During WWII Private Eddie Slovik was tried by court-martial

and sentenced to death for desertion. He was shot by his

own unit, the 28th Infantry Division, in a small town in

northeast France.