Rosenbergs executed 1953
On this day in 1953, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who were
convicted of conspiring to pass U.S. atomic secrets to the Soviets, are
executed at Sing Sing Prison in Ossining, New York. Both refused to
admit any wrongdoing and proclaimed their innocence right up to the time
of their deaths, by the electric chair. The Rosenbergs were the first
U.S. citizens to be convicted and executed for espionage during
peacetime and their case remains controversial to this day.
Julius Rosenberg was an engineer for the U.S. Army Signal Corps who
was born in New York on May 12, 1918. His wife, born Ethel Greenglass,
also in New York, on September 28, 1915, worked as a secretary. The
couple met as members of the Young Communist League, married in 1939 and
had two sons. Julius Rosenberg was arrested on suspicion of espionage
on June 17, 1950, and accused of heading a spy ring that passed
top-secret information concerning the atomic bomb to the Soviet Union.
Ethel was arrested two months later. The Rosenbergs were implicated by
David Greenglass, Ethel’s younger brother and a former army sergeant and
machinist at Los Alamos, the secret atomic bomb lab in New Mexico.
Greenglass, who himself had confessed to providing nuclear secrets to
the Soviets through an intermediary, testified against his sister and
brother-in-law in court. He later served 10 years in prison.
The Rosenbergs vigorously protested their innocence, but after a
brief trial that began on March 6, 1951, and attracted much media
attention, the couple was convicted. On April 5, 1951, a judge sentenced
them to death and the pair was taken to Sing Sing to await execution.
During the next two years, the couple became the subject of both
national and international debate. Some people believed that the
Rosenbergs were the victims of a surge of hysterical anti-communist
feeling in the United States, and protested that the death sentence
handed down was cruel and unusual punishment. Many Americans, however,
believed that the Rosenbergs had been dealt with justly. They agreed
with President Dwight D. Eisenhower when he issued a statement declining
to invoke executive clemency for the pair. He stated, “I can only say
that, by immeasurably increasing the chances of atomic war, the
Rosenbergs may have condemned to death tens of millions of innocent
people all over the world. The execution of two human beings is a grave
matter. But even graver is the thought of the millions of dead whose
deaths may be directly attributable to what these spies have done.”
(More Events on This Day in History)
-
Automotive
- 2005 Controversy at U.S. Grand Prix
-
Civil War
- 1864 USS Kearsarge sinks CSS Alabama
-
Cold War
- 1953 Julius and Ethel Rosenberg executed
-
Crime
- 1892 A bloody fingerprint elicits a mother’s evil tale in Argentina
-
Disaster
- 1938 Montana flood causes train wreck
-
General Interest
- 1856 First Republican national convention ends
- 1864 CSS Alabama sinks off coast of France
- 1867 Emperor of Mexico executed
-
Hollywood
- 1905 First nickelodeon opens
- 2013 James Gandolfini, TV’s Tony Soprano, dies at 51
-
Literary
- 1934 Nathanael West’s A Cool Million is published
-
Music
- 1970 Carole King has her first #1 hit as a performer
-
Old West
- 1868 Father De Smet talks peace with Sitting Bull
-
Presidential
- 1886 Taft marries Helen Herron
-
Sports
- 1972 Curt Flood case decided
-
Vietnam War
- 1965 Ky becomes premier of South Vietnam
- 1968 South Vietnamese president signs general mobilization bill
-
World War I
- 1917 Britain’s King George V changes royal surname
-
World War II
- 1944 United States scores major victory against Japanese in Battle of the Philippine Sea
No comments:
Post a Comment