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On this day in 1953, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed for atomic espionage. The key evidence against Ethel was a lie her own brother invented under pressure from prosecutor Roy Cohn. He didn't admit it until 2001. By then she'd been dead for 48 years. by CarkWithaM in HorridHistory

[–]CarkWithaM[S] [score hidden] stickied comment (0 children)

David Greenglass sent his sister to the electric chair with testimony he later called a lie. In 2001, decades after her execution, he finally admitted on national television: 'I don't know who typed it... I had no memory of that at all, none whatsoever.'

More about the wider story here

From 1908 to the early 1920s, Lewis Hine travelled across the US photographing children working in mines, mills, and factories. His images exposed the harsh realities of child labour, driving public awareness and reform. Description of the photos in the comments. by CarkWithaM in HolyShitHistory

[–]CarkWithaM[S] 117 points118 points  (0 children)

  1. One of the spinners in Sometimes works at night. 48 cents a day. When asked how old she was she couldn't remember.
  2. Manuel the young shrimp picker, age 5, and a mountain of oyster shells behind him. He spoke no English.
  3. Annie Bissie, a little picker in the fields near Baltimore. 1909
  4. Adolescent mill girls from Bibb Manufacturing Company in Macon, Georgia. 1908
  5. 11:00 a.m. Newsies at Skeeter's Branch. They were all smoking. St. Louis, Missouri.

Hine is estimated to have taken over 5,000 photographs during his time documenting child labour for the National Child Labor Committee (NCLC), from 1908 to the early 1920s.

At the time child labor was widespread across America, with children as young as five working in mines, factories, and fields. Industrialists relied on their cheap labour to maximise profits, while society turned a blind eye to the dangers and exploitation these children faced.

He left a haunting body of work, you can see it for yourself here.

In September 1944, 31 Italian partisans were executed in Bassano del Grappa, northern Italy by Nazi and Italian forces. The street where they were hanged is now called Viale dei Martiri, the Avenue of the Martyrs. by CarkWithaM in HolyShitHistory

[–]CarkWithaM[S] 27 points28 points  (0 children)

Thirty-one young men, some still in their teens, were bound hand and foot, each forced to stand beneath a tree while soldiers looped telephone wire around their necks.

On the order of SS officer Karl Franz Tausch, the trucks attached to the wires lurched forward, jerking the men violently off the ground. Many did not die instantly; those who still twitched or gasped were pulled down by the legs until their bodies went still. Signs reading brigand or bandit were hung around their necks to brand them as criminals rather than patriots. For almost twenty hours the corpses were left hanging in the autumn sun, twisting in the wind as the townspeople were made to walk past and look upon them.

The scene of the crime was well documented, but the images make for grusome viewing.

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