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1775: Huttenkloas
The notorious Dutch criminal Huttenkloas was broken on the wheel on this date in 1775. The distinctive brand Huttenkloas today attaches to a brewery with a sigil depicting the “chair of Huttenkloas”...
View Article1767: Elsjen Roelofs
Elsjen Roelofs was broken on the wheel at Assen on this date in 1767 — an unusual fate for a woman, inflicted for poisoning her husband. The sources about her, and the links in this post, are almost...
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1630: Guglielmo Piazza and Giangiacomo Mora, colonna d’infamia
On this date in 1630, a ludicrous disease panic sent two innocent men to the scaffold in Milan. Terrified as their family and neighbors dropped dead around them of a raging bubonic plague outbreak, the...
View Article1729: Philippe Nivet, “Fanfaron”
On the last day of May in 1729, the French outlaw Philippe Nivet was put to death in Paris. Although some at the time considered that the legendary bandit Cartouche (executed in 1721) was “nothing as...
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1540: Hans Kohlhase, horse wild
On this date in 1540, the legendary outlaw Hans Kohlhase — a crime victim turned revengeful crime lord — executed* in Berlin. It’s a classic case of stubborn cusses escalating a minor property dispute....
View Article1610: Pierre Canal, Geneva sodomite
On this date in 1610* a Genevan official named Pierre Canal was twice capitally punished — broken on the wheel (for treason) and burned (for sodomy). A longtime city official, as well as an...
View Article1581: Peter Niers
The execution of legendary German bandit and mass-murderer Peter Niers took place in Neumarkt on this date in 1581 … or at least, it started on this date. A veritable bogeyman figure thanks to the...
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1704: Roland Laporte, posthumously, and five aides, humously
On this date in 1704, the great Camisard commander Pierre Laporte was publicly burned. He was already two days dead, but the same could not be said by five comrades-in-rebellion who were quite alive as...
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1726: Franz Laubler, Hermann Joachim Hahn’s murderer
Franz Laubler was broken on the wheel in Dresden on this date for assassinating Protestant deacon Hermann Joachim Hahn. Hahn was a well-connected pastor who had been plying his trade in the Lutheran...
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1581: Christman Genipperteinga
June 17 of 1581 was the alleged condemnation date — the best specific calendar date we have — for the German robber/murderer Christman Genipperteinga or Gniperdoliga, who was broken on the wheel for a...
View ArticleUnspecified Year: Vilem, the Forest King
On this date in an unspecified year, the bandit Vilem is broken on the wheel and beheaded in the classic Czech poem Maj, by Karel Hynek Macha. Maj (“May”) commences with a lass called Jarmila on the...
View Article1775: A robber under the apartments of Joseph Jekyll
We owe this date’s entry to Joseph Jekyll, a young gentleman (kin to the late judge of the same name whom Alexander Pope had once teased as an “odd old Whig/Who never changed his principle or wig”) who...
View Article1720: Antoine-Joseph de Horn, humanity from an executioner
(Thanks to Henry-Clement Sanson for the guest post. The former executioner — the last of his illustrious dynasty comprising six generations of bourreaux — was the grandson of that dread figure of the...
View Article1673: La Chaussee, for the giblet pie
On this date in 1673, a footman named La Chaussee paid the forfeit for acting the agent of fugitive poisoner. The malevolent concoctions of the Marquise de Brinvilliers have already been detailed in...
View Article1588: Two Nuremberg highwaymen
Nuremberg executioner Franz Schmidt on this date in 1588 broke on the wheel two of the countless violent thieves that haunted the byways of early modernity. As the meticulous Nachrichter did for all...
View ArticleA day in the executions of Franz Schmidt
The free imperial city of Nuremberg has been a regular feature on this site thanks to the detailed journal of executions kept by its legendary executioner Franz Schmidt. We have profiled many of the...
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1755: Louis Mandrin
On this date in 1755, the French outlaw Louis Mandrin was broken on the wheel. In common with the whole French populace, Mandrin had a beef with the Ferme general — the country’s tax-farming concern —...
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1464: Johann Breyde, via Schandbild
On April 1, 1464 mayor of Cologne Johann Breyde was chopped into quarters … with ink. This startling image does not depict an actual flesh-and-blood execution. It is, instead, an outstanding (and...
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1785: Horea and Closca, Transylvanian rebels
On this date in 1785, two of the three leaders of Transylvania’s great peasant uprising were broken on the wheel in the city of Alba Iulia — the third having cheated the executioner by hanging himself...
View Article1755: Henri Mongeot, Lescombat assassin
On this date in 1755, Henri Mongeot was broken on the wheel for assassinating the husband of his adulterous lover, Marie. Louis Alexandre Lescombat was a Paris architect; the betrayal of his flighty...
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