Today is pretty stunning in just how many famous people came to a sudden end.
Sir Everard Digby, member of Guy Fawkes' Gunpowder Plot was executed for High Treason on this day in 1606.
English King Charles I mounted the scaffold of the regicides on this day in 1649.
Turnabout is fair play, I guess, as the corpse of chief regicide Oliver Cromwell was dug up to be ritually executed two years later.
The 47 Ronin avenged their master on this day in 1703.
On this day in 1945 the liner Wilhelm Gustloff was torpedoed and sunk by the Russians. The ship was packed with nearly 10,000 refugees from East Prussia; 9,500 perished in the worst maritime disaster in history - more than six times the death toll of the Titanic.
Gandhi was assassinated on this day in 1948.
That's quite a list. Rather an inauspicious day.
Another bad one is April 14th, which singer Gillian Welch dubbed "Ruination Day":
ReplyDeletehttp://youtu.be/mjX2ztmjLk4
Well Charles will have been happy to know he was killed more than once, and Ollie I'm sure was surprised at being mock executed ten years too early.
ReplyDelete