Major Mike | Today in History 07/14 (Sacco and Vanzetti)

Ferdinando Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti in handcuffs, circa 1920s (© Fotosearch/Getty Images)

(1921) Italian anarchists found guilty of murder

The robbery of a Massachusetts shoe company resulted in the shooting death of two employees, and two Italian-born anarchists are now found guilty of the murders. Despite much controversy over the trial, and a growing belief in their innocence, Sacco and Vanzetti will be executed six years later.

Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were Italian-born American anarchists who were controversially convicted of murdering a guard and a paymaster during the April 15, 1920 armed robbery of the Slater and Morrill Shoe Company in Braintree, Massachusetts, United States. Seven years later, they were electrocuted in the electric chair at Charlestown State Prison. Both men adhered to an anarchist movement that advocated relentless warfare against a violent and oppressive government.

Bartolomeo Vanzetti (left), handcuffed to Nicola Sacco (right). Dedham, Massachusetts Superior Court, 1923. This photo was taken in 1923 when Sacco was on the 23rd day of a hunger strike.
wiki/Sacco_and_Vanzetti

4.13.j18

(1921) Italian anarchists found guilty of murder.
Also on this day,

1789 | Parisians storm an ancient symbol of royal tyranny

The French Revolution’s flash point is centered on Paris’ Bastille, as upwards of 1,000 insurgents attack the medieval fortress and prison to acquire its large stores of gunpowder. Bastille Day will be celebrated from then on as a national holiday in France.

1881 | A notorious Wild West outlaw Billy the Kid is brought down

Henry McCarty, better known by his deceptively childlike nickname ‘Billy the Kid,’ first killed a man at 17 and has since become famous as both a folk hero and vicious criminal. New Mexico Sheriff Pat Garrett ends the 21-year-old Kid’s storied career with a shot just above the heart.

1960 | A young Goodall journeys into Africa to study chimpanzees

With funds raised by her friend and mentor, noted paleoanthropologist Louis Leakey, 26-year-old Jane Goodall journeys to Gombe Stream National Park on Lake Tanganyika, in what will later be Tanzania, Africa. There the amateur primatologist will begin her groundbreaking studies of chimpanzee communities.

Today in History ^07/14/17

Woodcut from Beadle's Half Dime Library showing Wild West criminal Billy the Kid meeting his end at the hands of Sheriff Pat Garrett in Fort Sumner, NM (© MPI/Getty Images)

(1789) Parisians storm an ancient symbol of royal tyranny

The French Revolution's flash point is centered on Paris' Bastille, as upwards of 1,000 insurgents attack the medieval fortress and prison to acquire its large stores of gunpowder. Bastille Day will be celebrated from then on as a national holiday in France.

The Storming of the Bastille occurred in Paris, France, on the afternoon of 14 July 1789. The medieval fortress, armory, and political prison in Paris known as the Bastille represented royal authority in the center of Paris. The prison contained just seven inmates at the time of its storming but was a symbol of abuses by the monarchy; its fall was the flashpoint of the French Revolution.