Creepy Facts from the internets
1) Only one woman has ever been executed in Queensland, Australia and this may be why… in 1886, Ellen Thompson was hanged for murder but the drop was too long. Her neck tore and she profusely bled out in front of all witnesses.
2) Speaking of Oz, Tasmania used to be a prison state so between 1826-1827, more than 103 people were hanged.
3) England is the mother of torture as far as history books tell it but Demark reportedly introduced torture as part of common crime punishment in 1157.
4) Decapitation was introduced as a legal method of execution in England in 1076 by William the Conqueror. His first victim? Earl Waltheof, brother-n-law to the Conqueror, was executed for conspiracy to murder the King.
5) The last decapitation and hanging in the United Kingdom was in 1820 when the execution of the Cato Street Conspirators too place. Who were they? A group of Spencean Philanthropists, named after the British radical speaker Thomas Spence who attempted to murder all the British cabinet ministers and Prime Minister Lord Liverpool in 1820.
6) The bodies of dead women were used to test the effectiveness of the prototype guillotine.
