On August 6, 1890, at Auburn Prison, New York, William Kemmler became the first person to be sent to the chair. He was convicted of murdering his lover, Matilda Ziegler, with an axe. After he was strapped in, a charge of approximately 700 volts was delivered for only 17 seconds before the current failed. Although witnesses reported smelling burnt clothing and charred flesh, Kemmler was far from dead, and a second shock was prepared. The second charge was 1,030 volts and applied for about two minutes, whereupon smoke was observed coming from the head of Kemmler, who was clearly deceased. An autopsy showed that the electrode attached to his back had burned through to the spine. Electrocution as a humane means of execution was first suggested in 1881 by Dr. Albert Southwick, a dentist. Southwick had witnessed an elderly drunkard “painlessly” killed after touching the terminals of an electrical generator in Buffalo, New York. In the prevalent form of execution at the time—death b...
Elephant went on a rampage during a transport and knocked out power to a whole neighborhood, but cameras later showed why his heart broke.
A rural neighborhood lost power overnight after an elephant being moved to a new sanctuary started pulling down streetlights and damaging power lines along the road. At first, people thought he was simply enraged.
But sanctuary staff later explained the elephant had been recovering from an injury for months, and during that time, he had formed a deep bond with another elephant in the rehabilitation area.
On his final day there, cameras captured the two elephants standing together, holding trunks like they somehow understood goodbye was coming. Then he was loaded into the transport truck.
As the truck moved through town, the elephant became restless, reaching out toward poles and streetlights, pulling them down one by one until the area went dark.
Workers spent the morning fixing the damage, and officials said the move had gone wrong because the elephant was distressed during separation. People called it destruction at first.
But staff said it looked more like heartbreak, because the elephant wasn’t fighting the town. He was trying to hold onto the one elephant he didn’t want to leave.
Comments
Post a Comment