Trident
02-13-2009, 04:36 AM
Admit it. You would if you could. Here are some fun ways to commit this act of justifiable homicide:
Hanging, drawing and quartering
Until reformed under the Treason Act 1814, the full punishment for the crime of treason was to be hanged, drawn and quartered in that the condemned prisoner would be:
1. Dragged on a hurdle (a wooden frame) to the place of execution. This is one possible meaning of drawn. The more likely meaning of Drawn is the act of disembowelment.
2. Hanged by the neck for a short time or until almost dead (hanged).
3. Disembowelled and emasculated and the genitalia and entrails burned before the condemned's eyes (this is another meaning of drawn—see the reference to the Oxford English Dictionary below).
4. The body divided into four parts, then beheaded (quartered).
Typically, the resulting five parts (i.e. the four quarters of the body and the head) were gibbeted (put on public display) in different parts of the city, town, or, in famous cases, in the country, to deter would-be traitors who had not seen the execution. After 1814, the convict would be hanged until dead and the mutilation would be performed post-mortem. Gibbeting was later abolished in England in 1843, while drawing and quartering was abolished in 1870.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/39/Gunpowderhdq2.png
Execution by burning
Execution by burning has a long history as a method of punishment for crimes such as treason, heresy and witchcraft (burning, however, was actually less common than hanging, pressing, or drowning as a punishment for witchcraft). This method of execution fell into disfavour among governments in the late 18th century; today, it is considered cruel and unusual punishment. The particular form of execution by burning in which the condemned is bound to a large stake is more commonly called burning at the stake. According to the Talmud, the "burning" mentioned in the Bible was done by melting lead and pouring it down the convicted person's throat, causing immediate death.
If the fire was large (for instance, when a large number of prisoners were executed at the same time), death often came from the carbon monoxide poisoning before flames actually caused harm to the body. However, if the fire was small, the convict would burn for some time until death from heatstroke and loss of blood plasma. The typical depictions of burnings show that the executioner would arrange a pile of wood around the condemned's feet and calves, with supplementary small bundles of sticks and straw called faggots at strategic intervals up their body.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/b0/Jan_Hus_at_the_Stake.jpg
Decapitation
Decapitation (from Latin, caput, capitis, meaning head), or beheading, is the cutting off of the head of a person or animal. Beheading typically refers to the act of intentional decapitation, e.g., as a means of murder or execution; it may be accomplished, for example, with an axe, sword, knife, wire, or by means of a guillotine. An executioner carrying out decapitations is called a headsman. Decapitation is fatal, as brain death occurs within seconds to minutes without the support of the organism's body.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/38/Judith_Beheading_Holofernes_by_Caravaggio.jpg
Boiling to death
Boiling to death is a crude and torturous method of execution. This penalty was carried out using a large cauldron filled with water, oil, tar, tallow or even molten lead. Sometimes the victim was immersed, the liquid then being heated, or he was plunged into the already boiling contents, usually head first. The executioner could then help speed their demise by means of a large hook with which he sank the criminal deeper. An alternative method was to use a large shallow receptacle rather than a cauldron; oil, tallow or pitch then being poured in. The victim was then partially immersed in the liquid and fried to death. In England, statute 22 passed in 1531 by Henry VIII, made boiling a legal form of capital punishment. It was used for poisoners, specifically enacted because one John Roose, who was the cook for the Bishop of Rochester, poisoned a number of people, resulting in two deaths. It was employed again in 1542 for a woman who used poison. The act was finally repealed in 1547.
On the European continent, this form of capital punishment was reserved for counterfeiters during the Middle Ages. These types of executions usually attracted larger crowds than for hangings or beheadings due to their novelty. In the old town of Deventer the kettle that was used for boiling criminals to death can still be seen today.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bd/Boiling.jpg
Execution by firing squad
Execution by firing squad is a method of capital punishment, particularly common in times of war. The firing squad is generally composed of several soldiers or peace officers. The method of execution requires all members of the group to fire simultaneously, thus preventing both disruption of the process by a single member and identification of the member who fired the lethal shot. The condemned is typically blindfolded or hooded, as well as restrained - though in some cases, condemned prisoners have asked to be allowed to face the firing squad with their eyes open. Executions can be carried out with the condemned either standing or sitting.
Execution by firing squad is distinct from other forms of execution by firearms, such as a single shot from a handgun to the back of the neck. However, the single shot (coup de grâce) is sometimes incorporated in a firing squad execution, particularly if the initial volley turns out not to be immediately fatal.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/24/The_Bochnia_massacre_German-occupied_Poland_1939.jpg
Electric chair
Execution by electrocution (usually referred to, after its method of implementation, as the electric chair) is an execution method originating in the United States in which the person being put to death is strapped to a specially built wooden chair and electrocuted through electrodes placed on the body. This execution method has been used only in the United States and, for a period of several decades, in the Philippines (its first use there in 1924, last in 1976). The electric chair has become a symbol of the death penalty; however, its use is in decline.
Historically, once the person was attached to the chair, various cycles (differing in voltage and duration) of alternating current would be passed through the condemned's body, in order to fatally damage the internal organs (including the brain). The first jolt of electrical current was designed to cause immediate unconsciousness and brain death; the second one was designed to cause fatal damage to the vital organs. Death was frequently caused by electrical overstimulation of the heart.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8d/Singchair.jpg
Gas chamber
A gas chamber is an apparatus for killing, consisting of a sealed chamber into which a poisonous or asphyxiant gas is introduced. The most commonly used poisonous agent is hydrogen cyanide; carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide have also been used. Gas chambers were used as a method of execution for condemned prisoners in the United States beginning in the 1920s. During the Holocaust, large-scale gas chambers designed for mass killing were used by Nazi Germany as part of their genocide program. The use of gas chambers has also been reported in North Korea.
Lethal injection
Lethal injection refers to the practice of injecting a person with a fatal dose of drugs for the express purpose of killing the subject. The main application for this procedure is capital punishment, but the term may also be applied in a broad sense to euthanasia, and suicide.
Lethal injection gained popularity in the twentieth century as a form of execution intended to supplant other methods, notably electrocution, hanging, firing squad, gas chamber, and beheading, that were considered to be less humane. The humaneness of lethal injection has been debated. It is now the most common form of execution in the United States: every American execution in 2005 was conducted by lethal injection.
Breaking wheel
Breaking on the wheel was a form of torturous execution formerly in use, especially in ancient Greece (where it originated), France, Germany, Sweden, colonial Louisiana (pre-United States), and Russia.
The wheel was typically a large wooden wagon wheel with many radial spokes, but a wheel was not always used. In some cases the condemned was lashed to the wheel and beaten with a club or iron cudgel, with the gaps in the wheel allowing the cudgel to break through. Alternatively, the condemned was spreadeagled and broken on a St Andrew's cross consisting of two wooden beams nailed in an "X" shape, after which the victim's mangled body might be displayed on the wheel. In the execution of the parricide Franz Seuboldt in Nuremberg on 22 September 1589, a wheel was used as a cudgel: the executioner used wooden blocks to raise Seuboldt's limbs, then broke them by slamming a wagon wheel down onto the limb.
In France the condemned were placed on a cart-wheel with their limbs stretched out along the spokes over two sturdy wooden beams. The wheel was made to revolve slowly, and a large hammer or an iron bar was then applied to the limb over the gap between the beams, breaking the bones. This process was repeated several times per limb. Sometimes it was 'mercifully' ordered that the executioner should strike the criminal on chest and stomach, blows known as coups de grâce (French: "blow of mercy"), which caused lethal injuries, leading to the end of the torture by death; without those, the broken man could take hours, even days, before shock and dehydration caused death. In France, a special grace, the retentum, could be granted, by which the condemned was strangled after the second or third blow, or in special cases, even before the breaking began. Afterwards, the condemned's shattered limbs were woven ('braiden') through the spokes of the wheel, which was then hoisted onto a tall pole so that birds could eat the sometimes still-living individual.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b3/Breaking_Wheel.jpg
Immurement
Immurement is a form of execution where a person is walled up within a building and left to die from starvation or dehydration. This is distinct from a premature burial, where the victim typically dies of asphyxiation.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/57/Estonia_Immuration02.JPG
Scaphism
Scaphism, also known as the boats, was an ancient Persian method of execution designed to inflict torturous death. The name comes from the Greek word skaphe, meaning "scooped (or hollowed) out".
The naked person was firmly fastened within a back-to-back pair of narrow rowing boats (or a hollowed-out tree trunk), with the head, hands, and feet protruding. The condemned was forced to ingest milk and honey to the point of developing severe diarrhea, and more honey would be rubbed on his body so as to attract insects to the exposed appendages. They would then be left to float on a stagnant pond or be exposed to the sun. The defenseless individual's faeces accumulated within the container, attracting more insects, which would eat and breed within his or her exposed and increasingly gangrenous flesh. Death, when it eventually occurred, was probably due to a combination of dehydration, starvation and septic shock. Delirium would typically set in after a few days.
In other recorded versions, the insects did not eat the person; biting and stinging insects such as wasps, which were attracted by honey on the body, acted as the torture.
Death by scaphism was painful, humiliating, and protracted. Plutarch writes in his biography of Artaxerxes that Mithridates, sentenced to die in this manner for killing Cyrus the Younger, survived 17 days before dying.
http://www.hannotations.com/hannibal/images/fou.jpg
Sawing
The condemned was hung upside down and then sawed apart down the middle, starting at the crotch. Since the condemned was hanging upside-down, the brain received a continuous blood supply in spite of severe bleeding. The condemned would remain alive and conscious until the saw severed the major blood vessels of the abdomen, and sometimes even longer. In Asian countries, the condemned stood up while constrained and sawing started at the head. According to some religious histories, the prophet Isaiah was executed in this manner. The Roman Emperor Caligula was said to particularly enjoy giving out this method of torture. Sawing was used to execute condemned in Europe under the Roman Empire, in the Middle East as referenced in the Bible and in parts of Asia.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5d/Die_Saege.JPG
Hanging, drawing and quartering
Until reformed under the Treason Act 1814, the full punishment for the crime of treason was to be hanged, drawn and quartered in that the condemned prisoner would be:
1. Dragged on a hurdle (a wooden frame) to the place of execution. This is one possible meaning of drawn. The more likely meaning of Drawn is the act of disembowelment.
2. Hanged by the neck for a short time or until almost dead (hanged).
3. Disembowelled and emasculated and the genitalia and entrails burned before the condemned's eyes (this is another meaning of drawn—see the reference to the Oxford English Dictionary below).
4. The body divided into four parts, then beheaded (quartered).
Typically, the resulting five parts (i.e. the four quarters of the body and the head) were gibbeted (put on public display) in different parts of the city, town, or, in famous cases, in the country, to deter would-be traitors who had not seen the execution. After 1814, the convict would be hanged until dead and the mutilation would be performed post-mortem. Gibbeting was later abolished in England in 1843, while drawing and quartering was abolished in 1870.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/39/Gunpowderhdq2.png
Execution by burning
Execution by burning has a long history as a method of punishment for crimes such as treason, heresy and witchcraft (burning, however, was actually less common than hanging, pressing, or drowning as a punishment for witchcraft). This method of execution fell into disfavour among governments in the late 18th century; today, it is considered cruel and unusual punishment. The particular form of execution by burning in which the condemned is bound to a large stake is more commonly called burning at the stake. According to the Talmud, the "burning" mentioned in the Bible was done by melting lead and pouring it down the convicted person's throat, causing immediate death.
If the fire was large (for instance, when a large number of prisoners were executed at the same time), death often came from the carbon monoxide poisoning before flames actually caused harm to the body. However, if the fire was small, the convict would burn for some time until death from heatstroke and loss of blood plasma. The typical depictions of burnings show that the executioner would arrange a pile of wood around the condemned's feet and calves, with supplementary small bundles of sticks and straw called faggots at strategic intervals up their body.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/b0/Jan_Hus_at_the_Stake.jpg
Decapitation
Decapitation (from Latin, caput, capitis, meaning head), or beheading, is the cutting off of the head of a person or animal. Beheading typically refers to the act of intentional decapitation, e.g., as a means of murder or execution; it may be accomplished, for example, with an axe, sword, knife, wire, or by means of a guillotine. An executioner carrying out decapitations is called a headsman. Decapitation is fatal, as brain death occurs within seconds to minutes without the support of the organism's body.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/38/Judith_Beheading_Holofernes_by_Caravaggio.jpg
Boiling to death
Boiling to death is a crude and torturous method of execution. This penalty was carried out using a large cauldron filled with water, oil, tar, tallow or even molten lead. Sometimes the victim was immersed, the liquid then being heated, or he was plunged into the already boiling contents, usually head first. The executioner could then help speed their demise by means of a large hook with which he sank the criminal deeper. An alternative method was to use a large shallow receptacle rather than a cauldron; oil, tallow or pitch then being poured in. The victim was then partially immersed in the liquid and fried to death. In England, statute 22 passed in 1531 by Henry VIII, made boiling a legal form of capital punishment. It was used for poisoners, specifically enacted because one John Roose, who was the cook for the Bishop of Rochester, poisoned a number of people, resulting in two deaths. It was employed again in 1542 for a woman who used poison. The act was finally repealed in 1547.
On the European continent, this form of capital punishment was reserved for counterfeiters during the Middle Ages. These types of executions usually attracted larger crowds than for hangings or beheadings due to their novelty. In the old town of Deventer the kettle that was used for boiling criminals to death can still be seen today.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bd/Boiling.jpg
Execution by firing squad
Execution by firing squad is a method of capital punishment, particularly common in times of war. The firing squad is generally composed of several soldiers or peace officers. The method of execution requires all members of the group to fire simultaneously, thus preventing both disruption of the process by a single member and identification of the member who fired the lethal shot. The condemned is typically blindfolded or hooded, as well as restrained - though in some cases, condemned prisoners have asked to be allowed to face the firing squad with their eyes open. Executions can be carried out with the condemned either standing or sitting.
Execution by firing squad is distinct from other forms of execution by firearms, such as a single shot from a handgun to the back of the neck. However, the single shot (coup de grâce) is sometimes incorporated in a firing squad execution, particularly if the initial volley turns out not to be immediately fatal.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/24/The_Bochnia_massacre_German-occupied_Poland_1939.jpg
Electric chair
Execution by electrocution (usually referred to, after its method of implementation, as the electric chair) is an execution method originating in the United States in which the person being put to death is strapped to a specially built wooden chair and electrocuted through electrodes placed on the body. This execution method has been used only in the United States and, for a period of several decades, in the Philippines (its first use there in 1924, last in 1976). The electric chair has become a symbol of the death penalty; however, its use is in decline.
Historically, once the person was attached to the chair, various cycles (differing in voltage and duration) of alternating current would be passed through the condemned's body, in order to fatally damage the internal organs (including the brain). The first jolt of electrical current was designed to cause immediate unconsciousness and brain death; the second one was designed to cause fatal damage to the vital organs. Death was frequently caused by electrical overstimulation of the heart.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8d/Singchair.jpg
Gas chamber
A gas chamber is an apparatus for killing, consisting of a sealed chamber into which a poisonous or asphyxiant gas is introduced. The most commonly used poisonous agent is hydrogen cyanide; carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide have also been used. Gas chambers were used as a method of execution for condemned prisoners in the United States beginning in the 1920s. During the Holocaust, large-scale gas chambers designed for mass killing were used by Nazi Germany as part of their genocide program. The use of gas chambers has also been reported in North Korea.
Lethal injection
Lethal injection refers to the practice of injecting a person with a fatal dose of drugs for the express purpose of killing the subject. The main application for this procedure is capital punishment, but the term may also be applied in a broad sense to euthanasia, and suicide.
Lethal injection gained popularity in the twentieth century as a form of execution intended to supplant other methods, notably electrocution, hanging, firing squad, gas chamber, and beheading, that were considered to be less humane. The humaneness of lethal injection has been debated. It is now the most common form of execution in the United States: every American execution in 2005 was conducted by lethal injection.
Breaking wheel
Breaking on the wheel was a form of torturous execution formerly in use, especially in ancient Greece (where it originated), France, Germany, Sweden, colonial Louisiana (pre-United States), and Russia.
The wheel was typically a large wooden wagon wheel with many radial spokes, but a wheel was not always used. In some cases the condemned was lashed to the wheel and beaten with a club or iron cudgel, with the gaps in the wheel allowing the cudgel to break through. Alternatively, the condemned was spreadeagled and broken on a St Andrew's cross consisting of two wooden beams nailed in an "X" shape, after which the victim's mangled body might be displayed on the wheel. In the execution of the parricide Franz Seuboldt in Nuremberg on 22 September 1589, a wheel was used as a cudgel: the executioner used wooden blocks to raise Seuboldt's limbs, then broke them by slamming a wagon wheel down onto the limb.
In France the condemned were placed on a cart-wheel with their limbs stretched out along the spokes over two sturdy wooden beams. The wheel was made to revolve slowly, and a large hammer or an iron bar was then applied to the limb over the gap between the beams, breaking the bones. This process was repeated several times per limb. Sometimes it was 'mercifully' ordered that the executioner should strike the criminal on chest and stomach, blows known as coups de grâce (French: "blow of mercy"), which caused lethal injuries, leading to the end of the torture by death; without those, the broken man could take hours, even days, before shock and dehydration caused death. In France, a special grace, the retentum, could be granted, by which the condemned was strangled after the second or third blow, or in special cases, even before the breaking began. Afterwards, the condemned's shattered limbs were woven ('braiden') through the spokes of the wheel, which was then hoisted onto a tall pole so that birds could eat the sometimes still-living individual.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b3/Breaking_Wheel.jpg
Immurement
Immurement is a form of execution where a person is walled up within a building and left to die from starvation or dehydration. This is distinct from a premature burial, where the victim typically dies of asphyxiation.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/57/Estonia_Immuration02.JPG
Scaphism
Scaphism, also known as the boats, was an ancient Persian method of execution designed to inflict torturous death. The name comes from the Greek word skaphe, meaning "scooped (or hollowed) out".
The naked person was firmly fastened within a back-to-back pair of narrow rowing boats (or a hollowed-out tree trunk), with the head, hands, and feet protruding. The condemned was forced to ingest milk and honey to the point of developing severe diarrhea, and more honey would be rubbed on his body so as to attract insects to the exposed appendages. They would then be left to float on a stagnant pond or be exposed to the sun. The defenseless individual's faeces accumulated within the container, attracting more insects, which would eat and breed within his or her exposed and increasingly gangrenous flesh. Death, when it eventually occurred, was probably due to a combination of dehydration, starvation and septic shock. Delirium would typically set in after a few days.
In other recorded versions, the insects did not eat the person; biting and stinging insects such as wasps, which were attracted by honey on the body, acted as the torture.
Death by scaphism was painful, humiliating, and protracted. Plutarch writes in his biography of Artaxerxes that Mithridates, sentenced to die in this manner for killing Cyrus the Younger, survived 17 days before dying.
http://www.hannotations.com/hannibal/images/fou.jpg
Sawing
The condemned was hung upside down and then sawed apart down the middle, starting at the crotch. Since the condemned was hanging upside-down, the brain received a continuous blood supply in spite of severe bleeding. The condemned would remain alive and conscious until the saw severed the major blood vessels of the abdomen, and sometimes even longer. In Asian countries, the condemned stood up while constrained and sawing started at the head. According to some religious histories, the prophet Isaiah was executed in this manner. The Roman Emperor Caligula was said to particularly enjoy giving out this method of torture. Sawing was used to execute condemned in Europe under the Roman Empire, in the Middle East as referenced in the Bible and in parts of Asia.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5d/Die_Saege.JPG