THE WORLD FAMOUS HISTORY AND PAST EVENTS

Richard Smith – the last man to hang for rape. 45 year old Richard Smith came to trial before Mr. Justice John Bosanquet at the Town Hall in Nottingham on the 14th of March 1835, charged with the rape of Mary Green in the Parish of St. Peter on the 24th of July 1835. 13 year old Mary was a servant to Smith who ran a drapery business in Carrington Street in Nottingham.  On the night of the 23rd of July, Smith sent Mary out to fetch some beer.  When she returned with it, he gave her a glass of it.  He also gave her some brandy and water and Mary was beginning to feel the effects of the alcohol.  She went to her room feeling ill and soon fell asleep, only to be woken by Smith getting into bed with her.   She alleged that intercourse had taken place.  She begged to be allowed to go home which was refused but Smith did allow her to go for a walk and she managed to get back to her parent’s house in Paradise Street.  Later in the day of the 24th her pare...

On February 20, 1925, longtime career criminal, Richard “Candy Kid” Whittemore, escaped from the Maryland state penitentiary after killing prison guard Robert Holtman.  He reunited with his wife Margaret Whittemore, known as Tiger Lil and the Tiger Girl, & began recruiting a team of stick up artists and hold up men such as Bernard Mortillaro, Pasquale Chicarelli, Joseph Ross, Morris "Shuffles" Goldberg, Leopold Gilden, Anthony Paladino & brothers Jake & Leon Kraemer.  Before Bonnie & Clyde ever captured the attention of America, the United States had Richard & Margaret, affectionately known as The Candy Kid & The Tiger Girl. The Whittemore Gang would commit a series of bank robberies in 2 states during a 12-month period.  The gang, went on the year-long crime spree committing payroll, bank, & jewelry robberies in Maryland & New York, before their capture, when they were arrested in 1926 for a major bank holdup & double murder in Buffalo...

The United States Has Been Enabling Torture for Decades "Marjorie Cohn – a law professor and past president of the National Lawyer's Guild – has assembled a compelling interdisciplinary anthology on the "normalization" of torture as an extension of American foreign policy. This is not a new occurrence limited to the so-called "war on terror," but extends back decades. The United States Exports Torture Mark Karlin: The infamous School of the Americas (SOA) (now euphemistically renamed the "Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation") has long been accused of teaching human rights violations, including torture. The Defense Department vigorously denies this accusation. In Chapter 2, Bill Quigley - who writes for Truthout, as well as yourself - outs the truth. Hasn't the School of the Americas, and its predecessor, which was located in the Panama Canal Zone, been outsourcing torture and human rights violations for decades? Marjorie Cohn...

Iranian mother forgives her son’s murderer, stops his execution. The parents of a young man killed in a street fight halt the execution of the convicted killer this week — seconds before he was to be hanged in front of a large crowd. It took place in Iran, where hangings are still accepted as a form of public execution. The semi-official Iranian news agency ISNA identifies the man who was to be hanged as Balal. In 2007, at the age of 19, he killed 17-year-old Abdollah Hosseinzadeh, ISNA reported. The two got into a street fight, and Balal took out a kitchen knife, stabbing Abdollah. The victim’s family believes that Balal did not intend to kill their son, the report said. ISNA photographer Arash Khamooshi was there when people gathered in the northern city of Noor, near the Caspian Sea in the province of Maznadaran, before dawn. One of Khamooshi’s photos shows Balal’s mother, Koukab, sitting on the ground before her son is brought out. “She had no energy left in her,” Khamooshi said. S...

Five Prisoners Executed In Iran, Including Young Man Whose Death Sentence Was Condemned By Amnesty International. The Iranian regime’s henchmen in city of Karaj hanged at least five prisoners in Gohardasht Prison on Tuesday. The victims included Alireza Shahi whose death sentence was condemned by Amnesty International on Monday. Five men were part of a group of at least ten prisoners that their execution had been for 24 November. The five victims, Said Najafi, Farshad Haqi, Mohammad Baygi, Mohammad Polombeh and Alireza Shahi had been transferred to isolation on Saturday. There has been no public announcement of these executions by prison officials. Amnesty International said on Monday that Alireza Shahi did not have a fair trial and “after his arrest he was placed in detention for two weeks where he says he was tortured and otherwise ill-treated to confess. He was also denied access to both a lawyer and his family.” “It is always cruel and inhumane to take away an individual’s life by ...

Two young men were hanged publicly in Tehran early this morning.  The young men have been identified as "Alireza Mafiha" and "Mohammad Ali Sarvari", 20 years old. They were arrested after mugging a man on a Tehran street on December 1, 2012. A video of the episode was posted on YouTube. It showed four young men mugging a man and one of them was holding a knife. The young men were arrested two weeks later, charged by a Tehran court with "Moharebeh" (Waging war against God) and "Corruption on earth", and sentenced to death. The death sentences were carried out publicly early this morning. One of the young men was quoted saying, "I know what I have done is wrong, but I didn’t think the punishment would be death." Mehr, a state-run news agency reported that the dead bodies were kept hanging from the crane for "17 minutes". Iran Human Rights (IHR) strongly condemns today’s public hangings. The spokesperson of IHR, Mahmood Amiry-Mog...

15 Most Brutal Rape Punishments Around The World. Rape is considered the most offensive crime in every society. Rape victims are often looked down in the society and had to suffer mental torture without any fault of her/him. This horrific impact of physical and mental assault often ruin the life of a victim. Different governments across the globe came up with strong laws against sexual assault to make their country a safer place for their citizen and to make sure no one who indulged in this heinous crime could roam free. Here are the most brutal rape punishments of different countries around the world. In China, The meritocratic leadership punishes the rapist straight away with a death sentence and in some scenarios rapist are also punished by the mutilation of their genitals. 2. Iran In Iran, the rapist is either hanged or shot to death in public. Sometimes the guilty escapes the death penalty by the premission from the victim but is still liable for 100 lashes or life imprisonm...

Noah Percy Collins - “The Abertridwr murder” “Because she refused to kiss me!”. 21 year old Noah Percy Collins was a collier at Abertridwr, and lodged with the  Lawrence family at 5 Aberfawr Terrace, Abertridwr. Mr. Lawrence was away at sea at the time of the murder.  His wife took in lodgers and Collins shared a room with a Mr. Donovan and the Lawrence’s son. Collins had fallen for 19 year old Ann Dorothy Lawrence, who went by the name of Dorothy, but she was not interested in him. At about six o'clock on the morning of the 17th of August Dorothy had got up to prepare her brother's breakfast, and was alone in the kitchen. Around 7.15 a.m. screams were heard by the mother, who was in her bedroom. Mrs. Lawrence rushed downstairs, and on her way heard Dorothy shout, “Oh, Ma!”  In the kitchen she found Dorothy, lying on her back on the floor in a pool of blood.  Her throat had been cut and she had been stabbed four times, with three wounds to the back and one to her che...

In Iran, prisoners report of tortures: «They forced us to rape each other while the guards were filming» We spoke to several protesters who had just been released from Iranian prisons, and experienced tortures by guards: «They deprived us of our dignity», one said. «They pushed us to think about suicide», another one reported The voice message comes in Persian. It is four minutes of metallic, monotonous voice. Flowing words alternating with long silences and sighs. We get it translated. «Good morning, I am Ali (fictitious name, ed.), I am 42 years old and a taxi driver». We have been trying to talk to him for a week. We know he just got out of jail, and we know he is one of the few willing to talk about what he has suffered, seen and heard. «I was arrested in front of Isfahan University (in central Iran, ed.) in late October. I was supporting students in the protests against dictator Khamenei». Guards put him into a car and took him to a secret detention center. In addition to pr...

William Tyndale, the man who translated the Bible into English and was burnt alive at the ridiculous young age of 42 years old, for his efforts. (Google Foxe's book of Martyrs.) Nearly 500 years ago, this week, William Tyndale, fondly called 'Father of the English Bible' was strangled and burned at the stake after being tried and convicted of heresy and reason for translating the Bible into English. HIS OFFENSE! He translated the Greek Bible into English. That you have a Bible in a language you can read is largely due to his labours, and many of the very phrases you read in it retain the flavour of his understanding of the Greek and Hebrew. A graduate of Oxford and Cambridge, Tyndale had a powerful desire to make the Bible available even to the common people in England, in order to correct the 'Biblical ignorance of the priests.' At one point Tyndale told a priest, "If God spares my life, are many years pass, I will cause a boy that driveth the plow, shall know...

* left pic is active addiction at 12 yrs old/right is after finding sobriety and reclaiming my culture ❤ Growing up I watched my people at the side of the road, passed out drunk, drinking mouthwash and hairspray. 😔 The question was always there. Why? If you visit any of the poorest communities/resource centre's (homeless shelters, detox centre's, etc) in Winnipeg you will see that they are occupied by 95% Indigenous Peoples. An estimated 85 - 90% of people incarcerated are Indigenous. 95% of the children in care are Indigenous. I remember finding a needle when I lived in the projects as a kid, poking my baby brother in the arm with it while we were playing doctor. All throughout my life I watched 'those' native people, never understanding. The educational institution only taught me the colonizers perspective - they came here and brought cars, buildings, jobs, doctors. They brought us so many amazing things. So why are native people so broken?  I internalized that pain ...