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A banner to commemerate Anne Boleyn's death this scene was soooo sad - seriously as I say to my freinds the beheadings get to me, I've cried in all of them except Dereham's and Culpepper's theirs was just way to gruesome to watch and the shock at what I was watching took over and I didn't cry. Natalie captivated this woman like no other actress.
The Postcard
A postally unused postcard bearing no publisher's name. The card was printed in Saxony, although the design of the back of the card looks American.
The card was posted in West Lynn, Massachusetts on Thursday the 1st. January 1914 to:
Margaret Rickman,
56, Fourth Street,
West Lynn.
The message on the divided back of the card was as follows:
"Love from Blanche".
Inayat Khan
So what else happened on the day that Blanche posted the card?
Well, the 1st. January 1914 marked the birth of Noor-un-Nisa Inayat Khan, GC.
She was a British heroine of World War II renowned for her service in the Special Operations Executive.
She also went by the name Nora Baker, and was a published author of Indian Muslim and American descent who was posthumously awarded the George Cross for her service in the SOE, the highest civilian decoration in the UK.
As an SOE agent she became the first female wireless operator to be sent from Great Britain into occupied France to aid the French Resistance during World War II, and was Britain's first Muslim war heroine.
Inayat Khan was betrayed to the Germans by a double agent working for the Sicherheitsdienst.
She was arrested and taken to Germany on the 27th. November 1943 "for safe custody".
Khan was imprisoned at Pforzheim in solitary confinement as a "Nacht und Nebel" ("Night and Fog": condemned to "Disappearance Without Trace") prisoner, in complete secrecy. For ten months, she was kept there, shackled at her hands and feet.
Execution
Inayat Khan was abruptly transferred to Dachau concentration camp with fellow agents Yolande Beekman, Madeleine Damerment and Eliane Plewman, and at dawn on the following morning, the 13th. September 1944, the four women were executed.
A Gestapo man named Christian Ott gave a statement to American investigators after the war as to the fate of Inayat Khan and her three companions. Ott was stationed at Karlsruhe and volunteered to accompany the four women to Dachau as he wanted to visit his family in Stuttgart on the return journey. He reported:
'The four prisoners had come from the
barrack in the camp, where they had
spent the night, into the yard where the
shooting was to be done.
Here the death sentence was announced
to them.
The German-speaking Englishwoman told
her companion of this death sentence.
All four had grown very pale and wept.
Khan asked whether they could protest
against the sentence. The Kommandant
declared that no protest could be made.
The four prisoners now had to kneel with
their heads towards a small mound of earth,
and were killed by two SS men, one after
another by a shot through the back of
the neck.
During the shooting the two Englishwomen
held hands and the two French women
did likewise.
For three of the prisoners the first shot
caused death, but for the German-speaking
Englishwoman a second shot had to be fired,
as she still showed signs of life.
After the shooting of these prisoners the
Lagerkommandant said to the two SS men
that he took a personal interest in the jewellery
of the women, and that this should be taken
to his office'.
The fate of James Scott, the 1st Duke of Monmouth is well known. Scott's executioner, the bungling halfwit known as Jack Ketch, failed to sever his head with a single blow of the axe - it took him several attempts - and even then he couldn't finish the job. Ketch ended up having to carve through Scott's neck with a pocket knife, butchering him like a pig. This was not the outcome that Scott had been hoping for, as you can probably imagine. There are plenty of (even more) gory details about his beheading on the web, including one account given here.
Whatever your views about the Duke of Monmouth, this was not the right and proper way to extinguish his threat to the crown. Even by the standards of 1685*, the manner of his execution was considered by many to be abhorrently flawed and utterly grotesque.
* Or, more correctly, by the cultural values of the British in 1685
This memorial takes the form of a glass pillow resting on a polished glass disk. It is intended to remember all those who were executed near this spot, with particular reference to the seven famous figures who were beheaded here and three army deserters shot by firing squad. Around the disk are the words--
Close to this site were executed:
William, Lord Hastings 1483
Queen Anne Boleyn 1536
Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury 1541
Jane Boleyn, Viscountess Rochford 1542
Queen Katherine Howard 1542
Lady Jane Grey 1554
Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex 1601
Highlander Farquhar Shaw 19 July 1743
Highlander Samuel Macpherson 19 July 1743
Highlander Malcolm Macpherson 19 July 1743
Where danish members of the resistance where executed by the german soldiers and gestapo during WW2 and the occupation of Denmark april 9 th 1940 - may 5th 1945.
Notice the poles have been shot through in chest height. A white cloth was fastend to the chest of the person/persons, so the shooters had no problem aiming for the heart.
Lincoln Victorian Prison is found within Lincoln Castle. It is not to be confused with the modern HMP Lincoln.
This cell was reserved for a man who had received a sentence of execution. Seven such prisoners were held here throughout the prison's service. Only one prisoner at a time would be held in this cell. Were two prisoners awaiting execution at the same time, a second cell was available, but it was generally used for other prisoners.
Death sentences were always appealed, The Home Secretary having the final decision. A successful appeal would result in the death sentence being commuted to life imprisonment. The 150 miles or so which separate Lincoln from London plus the appeals process itself meant that appeals took several weeks to resolve. The prisoner awaited his fate here.
The cell has a second door, just out of shot on the right hand side of the photo, allowing access to the enclosed exercise yard. Condemned prisoners were allowed an hour's supervised exercise (essentially walking in circles) each day. They were completely isolated from other inmates. The prison chaplain would make daily visits seeking to save the soul of the condemned. Were a prisoner who had pleaded not guilty to confess, he would be assured he could attain salvation, but I guess a higher authority had the final say.
[Dear Reader. You may consider the next paragraph a little graphic]
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Executions were conducted by hanging and were initially held in public but, over time, the raucous crowds these attracted were found to be distasteful. Hangings were thereafter conducted within the prison in a special room a few yards from this cell, accessed via the exercise yard with the governor and chaplain being among the few witnesses. The prisoner's weight and height had been measured beforehand in order that "the drop" would cleanly break the prisoner's neck and so provide a rapid death, rather than through prolonged strangulation. Before this (err) advance, strangulation was actually the cruel intent of The State. Before being taken from his cell the condemned man would be placed in restraints. Imagine then leaving the cell and having those five final yards or so of daylight before entering a room, knowing you would be taken from it within the hour on a stretcher or in a box.
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The death sentence was last used in The UK in August 1964 and was withdrawn from the statute book in 1965 for all offences except High Treason and piracy. It was abandoned entirely in 1998. While the circumstances surrounding some convictions continue to horrify and succeed in persuading many that the ultimate sentence should be returned to law, it seems highly unlikely that this will ever happen.
Photographer unknown: Execution in Old Shanghai, September 1904. Major criminals were sometimes left to die publicly as an example to the innocent. A “cage” was constructed so that the inmate could either stand on tiptoe to relieve the pressure around his neck or finally suspend himself until he strangled.
Source: The Face of China As Seen by Photographers & Travelers 1860-1912, p. 89
"The bell will toll, the curtain rises, and you will see the culprit pay the penalty!"
At the Museé Mechanique in San Francisco, CA
Execution Rocks Lighthouse
National Lighthouse Museum
Signature "Halloween" Tour
Out of Staten Island, NY
October 30, 2021
Stained glass memorial to Sam Davis by the Tennessee Division of The United Daughters of The Confederacy.
Sam Davis, (1842 - 1863) Is remembered as the boy hero of the Confederacy.
As a Confederate courier, he was captured by Union soldiers on November, 20, 1863 while wearing a makeshift Confederate uniform and in possession various documents, including Union battle plans.
He refused to give up the names of his comrades. For this he was arrested as a spy, and was seen as ineligible for the privileges of a prisoner of war and sentenced to be hanged.
In the seven days of his captivity, Sam was asked to supply information many times in order to be set free, history has written that Sam replied "I would rather die a thousand deaths than betray a friend or be false to duty."
In prision Davis wrote a letter to his mother before the execution. "Dear mother. O how painful it is to write you! I have got to die to-morrow --- to be hanged by the Federals. Mother, do not grieve for me. I must bid you good-bye forevermore. Mother, I do not fear to die. Give my love to all." There was a postscript for his father, too. "Father, you can send after my remains if you want to do so. They will be at Pulaski, Tenn. I will leave some things with the hotel keeper for you."
Sam rode to the place of his execution in Pulaski, TN sitting on his coffin in a wagon. Union soldiers alongside the bumpy wagon road shouted out their entreaties for his cooperation, lest they have to watch the grim execution. Supposedly the officer in charge of the execution was discomfited by Davis' youth and calm demeanor and had trouble carrying out his orders. Davis is alleged to have said to him, "Officer, I did my duty. Now, you do yours."
Monuments to his bravery were erected on the grounds of the State Capitol and on the square in Pulaski. Later, in the 1920s, his family home in Smyrna became a historic house museum and a shrine to Davis, who is buried there in the family cemetery. Pulaski also has a small museum in his honor, dedicated in the 1960s, which stands near the spot of his hanging in the town's Sam Davis Avenue historic district.
In Sao Paulo the samba school Mancha Verde allowed us to shoot the preparation, rehearsal and execution of the Carnaval parade. An unique occasion which was arranged by our friend Isabel It was a very rare occasion that a samba school fully opened up this way and we felt honoured by it. Unlike most other parts in Brazil the carnival parade is not on the streets – it’s held on the Sambodromo, a giant elongated arena with a length of 1500 m.
The sambaschools form the core of the carnival – some 21 school go on parade in Sao Paulo. The size varies between 2500-4500 members and they all started out as fan clubs of soccer clubs. Mancha Verde has 3000 members and is connected to Palmeiras which in its turn is connected to the Paulistanos (people from Sao Paulo) from Italian origin.
The 2007 carnaval theme of the Manche Verder is the prophesies of Nostradamus.
In these two shots the assemblage of the spacesuits – one of the many 'fantasias" in which the people of Manche Verde go on parade.
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