Rainey Bethea walks up the stairs with guards for his public execution, in this Aug. 14, 1936 photo in Owensboro, KY.
In 1890, New York saw the first execution by electrocution.
Artist's impression of execution by electric chair, 1890. After experiments on animals to ensure the practicability of electrocution as method of execution, the first execution was carried out at Auburn Prison, New York, 6 August 1890 using a Westinghouse AC system. The man executed was William Kemmler, convicted of murdering his common-law wife.
By the 1920s, executioners were using cyanide gas.
Jack Sullivan who murdered John Bradbury, a railroad officer, during a gun fight, is seen smoking a cigar a few moments before he took his last breath in the lethal gas execution chamber at the state prison on May 17, 1936 in Florence, Arizona.
One execution was by firing squad.
Point of the Mountain, Utah: Photo of a group of newsmen looking at, and taking photos of the chair in which Gary Gilmore sat when facing the firing squad here 1/17. Draped over that back of the chair is the corduroy material hood which Gilmore wore during the execution. Upper right on the chair back are the bullet holes. The chair is surrounded with sandbags
The first execution by lethal injection took place in 1982.
Charlie Brooks at a funeral home. Brooks was the first person to be executed by lethal injection.
The abolitionist movement began in the 1700s and remains today.
Protesters against the death penalty gather in Terre Haute, Ind., Monday, July 13, 2020, where Daniel Lewis Lee, a convicted killer, was scheduled to be executed Monday at the federal prison in Terre Haute. A U.S. district judge on Monday ordered a new delay in federal executions, hours before the first lethal injection was scheduled to be carried out at the federal prison in Indiana.Michael Conroy/AP
Jack Sullivan who murdered John Bradbury, a railroad officer, during a gun fight, is seen grinning and smoking a cigar a few moments before he took his last breath in the lethal gas execution chamber at the state prison on May 17, 1936 in Florence, Arizona
The final person to be subject to a public execution was Rainey Bethea in Kentucky in 1936 (picture). His execution drew crowds of around 20,000 people - far more than usual - because it was the first to feature a female executioner
An unknown prisoner is pictured in an electric chair in around 1900. The electric chair is still used as an option for execution in Alabama, Florida, South Carolina, Kentucky, and Tennessee
A California Department of Corrections photograph, taken in 1996, shows the entrance to the execution chamber and the lethal injection table at California's San Quentin Prison
A crowd waits below a platform where three men stand beside a hooded man with a noose around his neck, who is condemned to be hanged. Carrolltan, Missouri. Circa 1896
Public executions in the United States took place until 1936. The final person to be subject to a public execution was Rainey Bethea in Kentucky in 1936 (pictured)
A picture from November 1865 show a man springing the trap to kill convicted Civil War war criminal Henry Wirz in the grounds of Old Capitol Prison
Reading the Death Warrant on Scaffold to Captain Henry Wirz, Commander of Fort Sumter, Washington DC, by Alexander Gardner, November 1865
Execution of a soldier of the 8th Infantry at Prescott in the Arizona Territory in 1877.
The execution of William Carr. Dec. 17, 1897, in Liberty, Missouri
Richard Carpenter, convicted cop-killer, put up a desperate struggle as he was escorted into courtroom to hear his death sentence. He was killed by electric chair in 1958
Circa 1940: A doctor checks a criminal's heartrate as he sits in the electric chair
A man strapped into an electric chair awaits his execution by electrocution in the United States in 1908. The first execution by electrocution was carried out in New York in 1890 on William Kemmler, 30, who was sentenced for the murder of his common-law wife, Matilda 'Tillie' Ziegler
A priest giving the last blessing to a man sentenced to death on the electric chair in 1928 in the United States
Three men stand next to an electric chair in the Cook County jailhouse, Chicago, Illinois, 1927
Artist's impression of execution by electric chair, prepared after experiments on the practicability of electrocution as method of execution. From Scientific American New York, 30 June 1888
The first use of the gas chamber for capital punishment in the U.S was against Gee Jon, a Chinese member of the Hip Sing Tong criminal society in San Francisco, in 1924
A gas chamber at San Quentin prison in California
A crowd peers through the windows of the lethal chamber of the State prison at Las Vegas, where Ray Elmer Miller was executed in 1933 for the murder of his wife. He shot and killed his wife as she left an attorney's office in Reno. It is thought she was then seeking a divorce. Miller gave his reasons for killing, the theory that his wife was allowing their child to starve to death
The media views the injection table as officials from San Quentin State Prison hold a tour of the newly completed Lethal Injection Facility, on Tuesday Sept. 21, 2010 in San Quentin, California
In this Sept. 18, 2009 photo, Warden of the Louisiana State Penitentiary, Burl Cain, discusses the gurney used for lethal injections
The execution chamber of the U.S. Penitentiary in Terre haute, Indiana, is shown from the media observation area in this undated photo
There were 18 executions in the US in 2022, the fewest in any pre-pandemic year since 1991. Executions were carried out in Arizona, Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Mississippi and Alabama
Outside of the pandemic years, the 18 US executions in 2022 represented the fewest of any year since 1991
I suspect the same would be the case today. We seem to have bred a whole world of finger-pointers who like northing more than to complain about anything & anyone, and take pleasure in the discomfiture of others, without themselves having even a fraction of the knowledge or ability that is required to pass judgement.
I suspect the same would be the case today. We seem to have bred a whole world of finger-pointers who like northing more than to complain about anything & anyone, and take pleasure in the discomfiture of others, without themselves having even a fraction of the knowledge or ability that is required to pass judgement.
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Jack Sullivan who murdered John Bradbury, a railroad officer, during a gun fight, is seen grinning and smoking a cigar a few moments before he took his last breath in the lethal gas execution chamber at the state prison on May 17, 1936 in Florence, Arizona
The final person to be subject to a public execution was Rainey Bethea in Kentucky in 1936 (picture). His execution drew crowds of around 20,000 people - far more than usual - because it was the first to feature a female executioner
An unknown prisoner is pictured in an electric chair in around 1900. The electric chair is still used as an option for execution in Alabama, Florida, South Carolina, Kentucky, and Tennessee
A California Department of Corrections photograph, taken in 1996, shows the entrance to the execution chamber and the lethal injection table at California's San Quentin Prison
A crowd waits below a platform where three men stand beside a hooded man with a noose around his neck, who is condemned to be hanged. Carrolltan, Missouri. Circa 1896
Public executions in the United States took place until 1936. The final person to be subject to a public execution was Rainey Bethea in Kentucky in 1936 (pictured)
A picture from November 1865 show a man springing the trap to kill convicted Civil War war criminal Henry Wirz in the grounds of Old Capitol Prison
Reading the Death Warrant on Scaffold to Captain Henry Wirz, Commander of Fort Sumter, Washington DC, by Alexander Gardner, November 1865
Execution of a soldier of the 8th Infantry at Prescott in the Arizona Territory in 1877.
The execution of William Carr. Dec. 17, 1897, in Liberty, Missouri
Richard Carpenter, convicted cop-killer, put up a desperate struggle as he was escorted into courtroom to hear his death sentence. He was killed by electric chair in 1958
Circa 1940: A doctor checks a criminal's heartrate as he sits in the electric chair
A man strapped into an electric chair awaits his execution by electrocution in the United States in 1908. The first execution by electrocution was carried out in New York in 1890 on William Kemmler, 30, who was sentenced for the murder of his common-law wife, Matilda 'Tillie' Ziegler
A priest giving the last blessing to a man sentenced to death on the electric chair in 1928 in the United States
Three men stand next to an electric chair in the Cook County jailhouse, Chicago, Illinois, 1927
Artist's impression of execution by electric chair, prepared after experiments on the practicability of electrocution as method of execution. From Scientific American New York, 30 June 1888
The first use of the gas chamber for capital punishment in the U.S was against Gee Jon, a Chinese member of the Hip Sing Tong criminal society in San Francisco, in 1924
A gas chamber at San Quentin prison in California
A crowd peers through the windows of the lethal chamber of the State prison at Las Vegas, where Ray Elmer Miller was executed in 1933 for the murder of his wife. He shot and killed his wife as she left an attorney's office in Reno. It is thought she was then seeking a divorce. Miller gave his reasons for killing, the theory that his wife was allowing their child to starve to death
The media views the injection table as officials from San Quentin State Prison hold a tour of the newly completed Lethal Injection Facility, on Tuesday Sept. 21, 2010 in San Quentin, California
In this Sept. 18, 2009 photo, Warden of the Louisiana State Penitentiary, Burl Cain, discusses the gurney used for lethal injections
The execution chamber of the U.S. Penitentiary in Terre haute, Indiana, is shown from the media observation area in this undated photo
There were 18 executions in the US in 2022, the fewest in any pre-pandemic year since 1991. Executions were carried out in Arizona, Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Mississippi and Alabama
Outside of the pandemic years, the 18 US executions in 2022 represented the fewest of any year since 1991
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11680405/The-evolution-ultimate-punishment-death-penalty-U-S-changed-250-years.html
Great 'photos though, thanks Tony.
It is disturbing that so many people would show up to watch an execution, if they were given the opportunity.
Yes,
I suspect the same would be the case today. We seem to have bred a whole world of finger-pointers who like northing more than to complain about anything & anyone, and take pleasure in the discomfiture of others, without themselves having even a fraction of the knowledge or ability that is required to pass judgement.