The thing that struck me in your post Pam was this:

"humane methods of execution" - there is nothing humane about executing another human being.  Thank heavens we don't have capital punishment here in the uk.

Thanks as ever for this great thread.

blue

Some countries still today have their form capital punishment, such as firing squad and beheadings, i've learned that the longest jail sentence in some countries is 6 mos. Drugs and Murder will get you that capital, even thieves in some cases. The only thing that can ultimately save your life is family members of the victim and the criminal. Not the justice system, which in some the juctice system is the families.

What i sometimes think about is the person doing the executions and how they live with it. It must take a certain kind of person to do it.

May 5, 1961:
From Cape Canaveral, Florida, Navy Commander Alan Bartlett Shepard Jr. is launched into space aboard the Freedom 7 space capsule, becoming the first American astronaut to travel into space. The suborbital flight, which lasted 15 minutes and reached a height of 116 miles into the atmosphere, was a major triumph for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).



May 5, 1821:
Napoleon Bonaparte, the former French ruler who once ruled an empire that stretched across Europe, dies as a British prisoner on the remote island of Saint Helena in the southern Atlantic Ocean.



May 5, 1862:
During the French-Mexican War, a poorly supplied and outnumbered Mexican army under General Ignacio Zaragoza defeats a French army attempting to capture Puebla de Los Angeles, a small town in east-central Mexico. Victory at the Battle of Puebla represented a great moral victory for the Mexican government, symbolizing the country's ability to defend its sovereignty against threat by a powerful foreign nation.



May 5, 1944:
Bertha Benz, the wife of inventor Karl Benz and the first person to drive an automobile over a long distance, dies on this day in 1944, in Ladenburg, Germany.



On May 5, 2004, a suitcase holding what is later identified as the partial remains of William McGuire, a 39-year-old Navy veteran and computer analyst is pulled from the water near Virginia Beach. A second suitcase of body parts was found nearby on May 11, and a third washed up near the Chesapeake Bay Bridge and Tunnel on May 15.




May 5, 1995:
The Dallas, Texas, area is hit by torrential rains and a severe hailstorm that leaves 17 dead and many others seriously wounded on this day in 1995. The storm, which hit both Dallas and Tarrant counties, was the worst recorded hail storm to hit the United States in the 20th century.



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On May 7, 1994, Norway's most famous painting, "The Scream" by Edvard Munch, was recovered almost three months after it was stolen from a museum in Oslo. The fragile painting was recovered undamaged at a hotel in Asgardstrand, about 40 miles south of Oslo, police said.


On the afternoon of May 7, 1915, the British ocean liner Lusitania is torpedoed without warning by a German submarine off the south coast of Ireland. Within 20 minutes, the vessel sank into the Celtic Sea. Of 1,959 passengers and crew, 1,198 people were drowned, including 128 Americans. The attack aroused considerable indignation in the United States, but Germany defended the action, noting that it had issued warnings of its intent to attack all ships, neutral or otherwise, that entered the war zone around Britain.




On this day in 1902, Martinique s Mount Pele begins the deadliest volcanic eruption of the 20th century. The following day, the city of Saint Pierre, which some called the "Paris" of the Caribbean, was virtually wiped off the map.



On this day in 1998, the German automobile company Daimler-Benz--maker of the world-famous luxury car brand Mercedes-Benz--announces a $36 billion merger with the United States-based Chrysler Corporation.


On this day in 1901, Gary Cooper, who will become famous for his performances in such movies as High Noon and The Pride of the Yankees, is born in Helena, Montana.




Poet Robert Browning is born on this day in 1812 in Camberwell, outside London

PMM, Thank you so much for all your hard work you do for this thread

Hi gang:
    What an interesting day in History it is today.





On this day in 1950, Lafayette Ronald Hubbard (1911-1986) publishes Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health. With this book, Hubbard introduced a branch of self-help psychology called Dianetics, which quickly caught fire and, over time, morphed into a belief system boasting millions of subscribers: Scientology.




On this day in 2001, during a soccer match at Accra Stadium in Ghana, an encounter between police and rowdy fans results in a stampede that kills 126 people. This tragedy was the worst-ever sports-related disaster in Africa s history to that time.



The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approves the world's first commercially produced birth-control bill--Enovid-10, made by the G.D. Searle Company of Chicago, Illinois.




On this day in 1971, the last original episode of the sitcom The Honeymooners, starring Jackie Gleason as Brooklyn bus driver Ralph Kramden, airs






On this day in 1914, President Woodrow Wilson issues a presidential proclamation that officially establishes the first national Mother's Day holiday to celebrate America's mothers.




On this day in 1945, Herman Goering, commander in chief of the Luftwaffe, president of the Reichstag, head of the Gestapo, prime minister of Prussia, and Hitler's designated successor is taken prisoner by the U.S. Seventh Army in Bavaria.



May 9, 1970:
Between 75,000 and 100,000 young people, mostly from college campuses, demonstrate peacefully in Washington, D.C., at the rear of a barricaded White House. They demanded the withdrawal of U.S. military forces from Vietnam and other Southeast Asian nations. Afterwards, a few hundred militants spread through surrounding streets, causing limited damage. Police attacked the most threatening crowds with tear gas.



May 9, 1955:
Ten years after the Nazis were defeated in World War II, West Germany formally joins the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), a mutual defense group aimed at containing Soviet expansion in Europe. This action marked the final step of West Germany's integration into the Western European defense system.




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On this day in 1934, a massive storm sends millions of tons of topsoil flying from across the parched Great Plains region of the United States as far east as New York, Boston and Atlanta.



On this day in 1947, the B.F. Goodrich Company of Akron, Ohio, announces it has developed a tubeless tire, a technological innovation that would make automobiles safer and more efficient.



May 11, 1812:
In London, Spencer Perceval, prime minister of Britain since 1809, is shot to death by demented businessman John Bellingham in the lobby of the House of Commons. Bellingham, who was inflamed by his failure to obtain government compensation for war debts incurred in Russia, gave himself up immediately.


May 11, 1981:
In what would prove to be the next to the last concert of his tragically short life, Bob Marley shared the bill at Madison Square Garden with the hugely popular American funk band The Commodores. With no costumes, no choreography and no set design to speak of, "The reggae star had the majority of his listeners on their feet and in the palm of his hand," according to New York Times critic Robert Palmer. "After this show of strength, and Mr. Marley's intense singing and electric stage presence, the Commodores were a letdown." Only days after his triumphant shows in New York City, Bob Marley collapsed while jogging in Central Park and later received a grim diagnosis: a cancerous growth on an old soccer injury on his big toe had metastasized and spread to Marley’s brain, liver and lungs. Less than eight months later, on May 11, 1981, Bob Marley, the soul and international face of reggae music, died in a Miami, Florida, hospital. He was only 36 years old.





May 11, 1961:
President Kennedy approves sending 400 Special Forces troops and 100 other U.S. military advisers to South Vietnam. On the same day, he orders the start of clandestine warfare against North Vietnam to be conducted by South Vietnamese agents under the direction and training of the CIA and U.S. Special Forces troops. Kennedy's orders also called for South Vietnamese forces to infiltrate Laos to locate and disrupt communist bases and supply lines there.




Fifty people die in a fire in the grandstand at a soccer stadium in Bradford, England, on this day in 1985. The wooden roof that burned was scheduled to be replaced by a steel roof later that same week.
Bradford was playing Lincoln City on the afternoon of May 11. Many fans were there to celebrate Bradford s two-year rise from bankruptcy to the league championship and promotion to the second division. Near the end of the first half, a fire broke out at one end of the main stands. Although several fans moved onto the field to escape the flames, there was no immediate general concern.



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