What was the strangest execution in history?
On 6 August 1890, a convicted murderer named William Kemmler became the first person in history to be executed by electric chair. He took it calmly, with serene good humour. Moments before the current was switched on, he said ‘Take it easy and do it properly, I’m in no hurry’. But it was not done properly. In the words of a New York Times article, ‘The execution cannot merely be characterized as unsuccessful. It was so terrible that the words fail to convey the idea.’ The horror of what happened to William Kemmler that day had a grim irony to it, because the electric chair had actually been developed as a more ‘civilised’ alternative to hanging. In fact, the man who came up with the idea, Alfred P. Southwick from Buffalo, New York, had a medical background, working as a dentist even as he developed the concept of execution by electricity. Dr. Southwick applauded Kemmler’s execution with the declaration, “We live in a higher civilization from this day on,” while Am...
