The Haymarket Martyrs

1887 Chicago, USA: The Haymarket Martyrs – August Spies, Albert Parsons, Adolph Fischer and George Engel – were hanged for "inciting" the Haymarket riot, at which they had not been present. The execution was protested in many countries worldwide, and in Australia large commemorative meetings were held for some years.

A fifth, 23-year-old Louis Lingg, had killed himself in his cell the previous evening. The evidence against them was their anarchist ideas and literature. They were found guilty in a trial which Governor John Peter Altgeld subsequently held to be grossly unfair. History has generally judged the convicted men to have been innocent ...

Categories: usa, radical-history, capital-punishment