published on July 12, 2024 in blog

Crime in History - On This Day

Historical Events

Events 1 - 100 of 224

Charlemagne in Rome

0800-11-23 Charlemagne arrives in Rome to investigate the alleged crimes of Pope Leo III

1315-04-30 French chamberlain Enguerrand de Marigny is hanged on the public gallows at Montfaucon after being convicted of sorcery

Execution of George, Duke of Clarence

1478-02-18 George, Duke of Clarence, convicted of treason against his older brother Edward IV of England, is privately executed in the Tower of London (allegedly by being drowned in a butt of Malmsey wine).

1490-01-04 Anna of Brittany announces that all those who would ally with the king of France will be considered guilty of the crime of lese-majesty
1619-02-20 Trial against Johan van Oldenbarnevelt begins in The Hague for alleged crimes against the federal government
1634-08-18 Urbain Grandier, accused and convicted of sorcery, is burned alive in Loudun, France.

Charles I Put on Trial

1649-01-06 The English Rump Parliament votes to put Charles I on trial for treason and other "high crimes"

William Kidd Hanged

1701-05-23 Captain William Kidd is hanged in London after being convicted of piracy and the murder of William Moore

Daniel Defoe Put in the Pillory

1703-07-31 Daniel Defoe is placed in a pillory for the crime of seditious libel after publishing a politically satirical pamphlet, but is pelted with flowers

1734-06-21 In Montreal, New France (Quebec), black slave Marie-Joseph Angélique, having been convicted of the arson that destroyed much of the city, is tortured and hanged by the French authorities in a public ceremony

Voltaire's Struggle for Religious Tolerance

1762-03-10 French Huguenot Jean Calas, who was wrongly convicted of killing his son, dies after being tortured by authorities; the event inspires Voltaire to begin campaign for religious tolerance and legal reform

Louis XVI Goes on Trial

1792-12-11 French King Louis XVI goes on trial, accused of high treason and crimes against the state

The Greatest Crime in Literary History

1824-05-17 The diaries of Lord Byron are burnt by six of the poet's friends at the office of John Murray in London, sometimes described as “the greatest crime in literary history”

1834-02-26 1st US interstate crime compact (NY-NJ) ratified
1854-10-25 Prince Menshikov of Crimea occupies British base at Balaclava
1855-06-17 Heavy French and British bombing of Sebastopol, Crimea: 2,000+ killed

Boss Tweed Convicted

1873-11-19 William Magear Tweed "Boss Tweed", of Tammany Hall (NYC) convicted of defrauding city of $6M, sentenced to 12 years' imprisonment

1883-04-13 US prospector Alfred Packer convicted of manslaughter though accused of cannibalism

Dreyfus Affair

1895-01-05 French Captain Alfred Dreyfus, convicted of treason, publicly stripped of his rank; later exonerated

1898-07-08 The shooting death of crime boss Soapy Smith releases Skagway, Alaska from his iron grip
1910-10-22 Dr. Crippen is convicted at the Old Bailey of poisoning his wife and was subsequently hanged at Pentonville Prison in London.
1915-08-15 Journalist Albert Siegfried Bettelheim, convicted of murder in Georgia
1918-12-20 The Allies turn their attention to Bolshevik expansion in the East, landing troops in Crimea and Latvia

1921-07-14 Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti convicted of killing their shoe company's paymaster and sentenced to death, in Dedham Massachusetts
1921-10-18 Biding its time, Soviet Russia agrees to independence for the Crimea

Storm Troopers

1923-01-13 Taking advantage of the chaotic condition of Germany, Hitler stages a demonstration of 5000 storm troopers and denounces the 'November crime'

1923-06-06 Gangster Albert Anastasia is convicted of illegal possession of a firearm and sentenced to two years in prison
1924-05-21 Nathan Leopold & Richard Loeb kidnap and kill Bobby Franks to demonstrate their supposed intellectual superiority by committing a "perfect crime"
1924-09-10 Leopold and Loeb found guilty of the murder of Robert Franks in Chicago in the "the crime of the century"

Albert B. Fall Convicted

1929-10-25 Former Interior Secretary Albert B. Fall convicted of accepting $100,000 bribe in the Teapot scandal - 1st US Cabinet member to go to jail

1930-03-31 The Motion Pictures Production Code is instituted, imposing strict guidelines on the treatment of sex, crime, religion and violence in film for the next 38 years

Al Capone Goes to Prison

1932-05-04 Al Capone enters Atlanta Penitentiary convicted of income tax evasion

1932-11-24 In Washington, D.C., the FBI Scientific Crime Detection Laboratory (better known as the FBI Crime Lab) officially opens.
1935-02-02 Leonarde Keeler first uses his polygraph machine on criminals later convicted of assault on its findings in Portage, Wisconsin

1939-06-17 Last public guillotining in France. Eugen Weidmann, a convicted murderer, is guillotined in Versailles outside the prison Saint-Pierre
1942-05-08 German summer offensive opens in Crimea
1942-07-03 German troops march into Sebastopol, Crimea
1942-08-08 6 convicted Nazi saboteurs who landed in US executed in Washington, D.C.
1942-09-12 Free-Poland & Belgium asks pope to condemn nazi-war crimes
1943-06-02 German assault on Sebastopol, Crimea, begins
1944-05-05 Soviet offensive against Sebastopol, Crimea
1944-05-09 Russians recapture Crimea by taking Sevastopol
1944-05-12 Crimea purged of Nazi troops
1944-05-18 Expulsion of more than 200,000 Tartars from Crimea by Soviet Union begins, they are accused of collaborating with the Germans

Hideki Tojo Attempts Suicide

1945-09-11 Hideki Tojo, Japanese Prime Minister during most of World War II, attempts suicide rather than face war crimes tribunal but fails - later he is hanged

1946-07-16 US court martial sentences 46 members of the SS to death (Battle of Bulge crimes) in Dachau

1948-05-04 The Hague Court of Justice convicts Nazi SS officer in the Netherlands Hans Rauter of Crimes against Humanity (executed 24 March 1949)
1948-11-12 Japanese Prime Minister Hideki Tojo sentenced to death by war crimes tribunal
1949-10-14 14 US Communist Party leaders convicted of sedition

1951-02-28 Senate committee reports of at least 2 major US crime syndicates

Event of Interest

1951-03-29 American citizens Julius and Ethel Rosenberg are convicted and sentenced to death for conspiracy to commit espionage for the Soviet Union

1953-01-28 19-year old Derek Bentley is hanged in Wandsworth Prison, London, controversially convicted of the murder of a police officer. He was pardoned on 30th July 1998.

Jomo Kenyatta

1953-04-08 Jomo Kenyatta convicted of involvement with the Mau Mau rebellion and sentenced to 7 years jail in Kenya

1953-09-28 "Racket Squad" TV Crime Drama last airs on CBS
1954-07-04 Dr Sam Sheppard's wife Marilyn is murdered (he is accused of the crime)
1956-02-01 Hague Daily Newspaper reveals war crimes of Hague mayor Schokking
1957-10-25 Cosa Nostra crime boss Albert Anastasia is murdered in a barber's chair in New York City, probably by fellow mobster Joe Gallo

Lana Turner Daughter Stabs Boyfriend

1958-04-04 Cheryl Crane (14), daughter of actress Lana Turner, stabs to death organized crime figure Johnny Stompanato, her mother's boyfriend, in self-defense; crime later ruled a "justifiable homicide"

Klaus Fuchs Released

1959-06-23 Convicted Manhattan Project spy Klaus Fuchs is released after only nine years in prison and allowed to emigrate to Dresden, East Germany, where he resumed a scientific career

CIA Pilot Convicted of Spying

1960-08-19 American CIA pilot Francis Gary Powers convicted of spying by USSR (U-2 incident); sentence to 3 years in prison plus 7 in a labor camp, he served 17 months before being exchanged for a captured Soviet KGB spy

1961-09-29 "Detectives" TV Crime Drama; moves to NBC-TV

1961-12-15 Court in Israel sentences Nazi party official Adolf Eichmann to death for war crimes for his participation in organizing the Holocaust
1962-06-01 SS officer Adolf Eichmann is executed in Israel after being found guilty of war crimes
1962-06-15 South Africa passes a bill setting death penalty for many crimes
1964-03-04 Teamsters union leader Jimmy Hoffa convicted of jury tampering
1964-07-26 Teamsters President and US union leader Jimmy Hoffa convicted of fraud and conspiracy
1964-12-22 American comedian Lenny Bruce is convicted of obscenity
1965-03-25 West German Bondsdag extends war crimes retribution
1967-05-15 "In re Gault", US Supreme Court rules juveniles accused of crimes should be given same legal rights as adults
1967-08-15 UK's Marine Offences Bill making pirate radio stations a crime goes into effect, pirate station Radio 355 closes down

1970-05-11 Henry Marrow is murdered in a violent racially-motivated crime in Oxford, North Carolina.
1970-08-31 Lonnie McLucas, a Black Panther activist, convicted of conspiracy to commit murder
1970-12-24 9 Jews are convicted in Leningrad of hijacking a plane

1971-01-26 Dutch 2nd Chamber accepts law against limitation of war crimes
1972-05-26 In the Republic of Ireland, the Special Criminal Court is re-instituted to deal with crimes arising out of the Northern Ireland conflict; as part of the measures trial by jury is suspended
1973-04-09 Otto Kerner, former governor of Illinois, convicted for his role in an illegal racetrack scheme

Zanjeer

1973-05-11 Ground-breaking Indian crime film "Zanjeer" directed by Prakash Mehra and starring "The Angry Young Man" Amitabh Bachchan released

1974-07-12 John Ehrlichman convicted of violating Daniel Ellsberg's rights
1974-07-30 House Judiciary Committee votes on 3rd & last charge of "high crimes & misdemeanors" to impeach President Nixon in the Watergate cover-up

1975-06-26 Two FBI agents and a member of the American Indian Movement are killed in a shootout on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota; Leonard Peltier is later convicted of the murders in a controversial trial.

Historic Publication

1976-03-20 American publishing heiress Patty Hearst convicted of armed robbery for her part in a 1974 California heist

1976-05-15 The Ulster Volunteer Force launch gun and bomb attacks on 2 pubs in County Armagh, killing 4 Catholic civilians and wounding many more; a British Army soldier is later convicted for taking part in the attacks
1976-10-04 Supreme Court lifts 1972 ban on death penalty for convicted murderers
1976-10-25 Governor Wallace grants full pardon to Clarence Norris, last known survivor of 9 Scottsboro Boys who were convicted in 1931 rape
1976-11-10 Utah Supreme Court approves execution of convicted murderer Gary Gilmore
1977-01-17 Gary Gilmore is executed by firing squad in the Utah state prison, convicted of murder
1977-04-28 American defense employee Christopher John Boyce convicted for selling secrets to the Soviet Union

Famous Birthdays

Guy Fawkes (1570-1606)

1570-04-13 English Catholic conspirator who was convicted in the "Gunpowder Plot" to blow up the British Parliament, born in York, England

1833-12-20 Samuel Mudd, American physician (imprisoned for conspiring with John Wilkes Booth), born in Charles Country, Maryland (d. 1883)
1853-04-22 Alphonse Bertillon, French police officer and anthropologist (devised crime ID system), born in Paris (d. 1914)

1876-09-06 Willem Adriaan Bonger, Dutch criminologist (Race & Crime), born in Amsterdam (d. 1940)
1878-12-31 Horacio Quiroga, Uruguayan playwright, poet, and short story writer (Anaconda, El Crimen del Otro), born in Salto, Uruguay (d. 1937)
1886-07-31 Salvatore Maranzano, Sicilian-born American organized crime figure, born in Sicily, Italy (d. 1931)
1887-12-25 John Davidson, American actor (Dick Tracy vs Crime Inc, Charlie Chan-Chinese Cat), born in New York City (d. 1968)
1888-10-15 S.S. Van Dine [pseudonym for William Huntingdon Wright], American art critic and crime writer (Philo Vance), born in Charlottesville, Virginia (d. 1939)

1893-10-12 Velvalee Dickinson, American spy, convicted of espionage against the United States on behalf of Japan during World War II, born in Sacramento, California (d. 1980)
1894-03-09 Frank Arnau [Heinrich Schmitt], German crime fiction writer, born in Vienna (d. 1976)
1894-10-04 Cliff Hall [Robert Clifford Hall], American actor (At This Moment, Dutch Treat, Crime Photographer), born in Brooklyn, New York (d. 1972)
1896-11-07 Herbert O'Connor, 51st Governor of Maryland and TV narrator (Crime Syndicate), born in Baltimore, Maryland (d. 1960)
1897-10-12 Inez Courtney, American stage and screen actress (The 13th Man; Crime Ring; The Raven), born in Amsterdam, New York (d. 1975)
1900-06-08 Lena Baker, American domestic servant convicted of capital murder of her employer, Ernest Knight (first and only woman executed in state of Georgia; posthumously pardoned in 2005), born in Cuthbert, Georgia (d. 1945) [1]

1927-04-12 Patrick Meehan, Scottish petty criminal, wrongly convicted of murder and later given a royal pardon, born in Scotland (d. 1994) [1]
1927-06-19 Luciano Benjamín Menéndez, Argentine general, Commander of the Third Army Corps (1975-79), and convicted human rights violator and murderer, born in San Martín, Buenos Aires (d. 2018)
1930-09-29 Colin Dexter, English crime writer (Inspector Morse), born in Stamford, Lincolnshire (d. 2017)
1931-10-04 Dick Tracy, comic strip crimestopper
1934-07-24 Sante Kimes 'Dragon Lady', American convicted con artist and murderess, born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma (d. 2014)
1935-04-26 James Cecil "Humpy" Parker, American disgraced ex-Sheriff convicted of violating inmates civil rights and of torture, born in San Jacinto County, Texas (d. 1994)
1935-07-05 John Gilmore, American true crime author (Severed: The True Story of the Black Dahlia Murder), born in Los Angeles, California (d. 2016)
1936-04-03 Reginald Hill, British crime author (Andrew Dalziel and Peter Pascoe novels), born in West Hartlepool, County Durham (d. 2012)
1938-04-06 Frances Schreuder, American socialite convicted of murder, born in Salt Lake City, Utah (d. 2004)
1938-07-23 Charles Harrelson, American organized crime figure, convited hitman, and father of actor Woody Harrelson, born in Lovelady, Texas (d. 2007)

1939-07-14 Ljubisa Beara, Bosnian general convicted of overseeing Srebrenica Massacre, born in Sarajevo (d. 2017)
1940-08-06 Louise Sorel, actress (BS I Love You, Crimes of Passion), born in Los Angeles, California

1942-08-06 George Jung [Boston George], American drug trafficker whose story was portrayed in the biopic "Blow", born in Boston, Massachusetts (d. 2021)

1943-03-13 André Téchiné, French director and screenwriter (Scene of the Crime, Rendez-Vous), born in Valence-d'Agen, Tarn-et-Garonne, France

Famous Weddings

1978-01-24 Rose Dugdale and Eddie Gallagher become the first convicted prisoners to marry in prison in the history of the Republic of Ireland.

Famous Deaths

1536-05-17 George Boleyn, 2nd Viscount Rochford, English brother of Anna Boleyn, beheaded after being tried and convicted for high treason and incest at 32

1661-03-24 William Leddra becomes the last Quaker to be hanged in Boston, for the crime of returning from banishment
1776-06-28 Thomas Hickey, American sergeant convicted of treason, hanged
1862-02-21 Nathaniel Gordon is hanged in NYC for engaging in the slave trade, the only slave trader in US history to be convicted and executed under the Piracy Law of 1820
1872-04-01 William Frederick Horry, English convicted murderer, dies at 28

1884-06-18 Juan Bautista Alberdi, Argentine political theorist and writer (Crime of War), dies at 74
1915-08-15 Albert Siegfried Bettelheim, Jew convicted of murder, lynched

1931-09-10 Salvatore Maranzano, Sicilian-born American organized crime figure, murdered at 63
1936-04-03 Bruno Hauptmann, German kidnapper of Charles Augustus Lindbergh III, executed at 36
1937-03-19 Horacio Quiroga, Uruguayan playwright, poet, and short story writer (Anaconda, El Crimen del Otro), commits suicide at 58
1940-05-15 Willem Adriaan Bonger, Dutch criminologist (Race & Crime), suicide at 63
1944-03-04 Louis Capone, New York organized crime figure (b. 1896) (executed)
1944-06-16 George Stinney, African-American boy wrongfully convicted of murder, is executed by electric chair at 14
1945-03-05 Lena Baker, American domestic servant convicted of capital murder of her employer, Ernest Knight, executed in electric chair at 45; pardoned in 2005 [1]
1945-10-06 Leonardo Conti, Nazi physician, dies by hanging himself while awaiting trial for war crimes at Nuremberg at 45
1946-02-23 Tomoyuki Yamashita [Yamashita Tomobumi], Imperial Japanese general dubbed "Tiger of Malaya," executed for war crimes by hanging at 60
1946-06-01 Ion Antonescu, Romanian army officer (Marshall; Cheif of Staff, 1933-34), authoritarian politician (Prime Minister and Conducător, 1940-44), is executed by firing squad after having been convicted of war crimes at 63
1948-06-02 Karl Brandt, German Nazi physician of Adolf Hitler, executed by hanging for war crimes at 44

1951-09-08 Jürgen Stroop, SS General during World War II and commander of Nazi forces during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, executed by hanging for crimes against humanity at 56
1955-06-03 Barbara Graham, American criminal convicted of murder, dies at 31
1958-04-04 Johnny Stompanato, American organized crime figure and abusive partner of actress Lana Turner, stabbed to death by her teenage daughter in self-defense at 32
1961-04-13 John A. Bennett, American convicted rapist, dies at 26
1962-10-02 Frank Lovejoy, American actor (Man Against Crime, Meet McGraw), dies from a heart attack at 50
1968-01-16 John Davidson, American stage and silent and sound screen actor (The Bronze Bell; Dick Tracy vs Crime, Inc; Chinese Cat), dies at 81
1970-06-11 William 'Billy Batts' Devino, American crime figure (b. 1921)

1971-11-26 Joe Adonis, US crime-syndicate boss in NY & NJ, dies at 68
1972-10-06 Cliff Hall [Robert Clifford Hall], American actor (At This Moment, Dutch Treat, Crime Photographer), dies at 78

1976-02-11 Frank Arnau [Heinrich Schmitt], German crime fiction writer, dies at 81
1976-07-29 Mickey Cohen, American gangster (Cohen crime family), dies at 62
1977-09-10 Hamida Djandoubi, Tunisian convicted murderer who was the last person to be executed in Western Europe, is beheaded in Marseille by guillotine at 28
1979-01-14 Thomas DeSimone, American gangster associate of the Lucchese crime family, missing thought murdered (b. 1950)
1981-03-06 Klaus Grabowski, German alleged murderer and convicted sex offender, shot and killed in Lübeck District Court by Marianne Bachmeier the mother of the daughter he was accused of murdering
1982-06-23 Vincent Chin, Chinese-American hate crime victim (b. 1955)
1982-12-07 Charlie Brooks Jr, convicted murderer became 1st US prisoner to be executed by lethal injection, at a prison in Huntsville, Texas

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