Famous People Who Were Executed a to z

Marie Antoinette helped provoke the popular unrest that led to the French Revolution and to the overthrow of the monarchy in August 1792.

Isaak Babel was a Russian writer of Jewish descent known for his masterful short stories. He was imprisoned and executed in the Stalin era.

St. Thomas Becket, England’s Archbishop of Canterbury, refused to give King Henry II power over the church. He was murdered in 1170 and became a saint in 1173.

Jeanne Bécu, Countess Du Barry, mistress to French King Louis XV, asserted her influence on the court throughout his reign and was later executed for treason.

Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, president and prime minister of Pakistan in the 1970s and father to Benazir Bhutto, founded the Pakistan People’s Party and was executed.

Anne Boleyn, the second wife of King Henry VIII, served as queen of England in the 1530s. She was executed on charges of incest, witchcraft, adultery and conspiracy against the king.

On April 14, 1865, actor John Wilkes Booth assassinated President Abraham Lincoln while he was watching Our American Cousin at Ford Theater in Washington, D.C.

John Brown was a 19th-century militant abolitionist known for his raid on Harpers Ferry in 1859.

Nicolae Ceausescu was the leader of Communist Romania for more than two decades until his execution in 1989.

Caryl Chessman is best known for his controversial conviction for sex crimes and his execution in 1960.

Andrei Chikatilo was a former school teacher who murdered more than 50 young people in the Soviet Union.

British serial killer John Christie murdered at least six women, including his wife, before being arrested and hanged in 1953.

Hawley Crippen became the first criminal to be caught with the aid of wireless communication when police arrested him in 1910 for murdering his wife.

Leon Frank Czolgosz is known as the assassin who killed President William McKinley.

Maximilien de Robespierre was an official during the French Revolution and one of the principal architects of the Reign of Terror.

Adolf Eichmann would be executed by the state of Israel for his role as coordinator of logistics for "the final solution to the Jewish question."

Ruth Ellis is best known for the murder of her lover, leading to her execution, the last of a woman in England.

British conspirator Guy Fawkes was executed in 1606 for attempting to blow up the Parliament building in what became known as the Gunpowder Plot.

Alexandra Feodorovna was consort of the Russian Czar Nicholas II. Her rule precipitated the collapse of Russia's imperial government. She was murdered, along with her entire family, in 1918.

Raymond Fernandez is a serial killer best known, along with his partner Martha Beck, as the Lonely Hearts Killers. The two were executed in 1949.

Saint John Fisher was a Roman Catholic bishop and cardinal who was martyred when he resisted King Henry VII's encroachments on the Church.

John Wayne Gacy is credited as one of the most vicious serial killers in U.S. history, with 33 victims.

Federico García Lorca is considered one of Spain's greatest poets and dramatists. One of his most successful poetry collections was The Gypsy Ballads.

Charles Julius Guiteau was an American lawyer best known for assassinating President James Garfield in 1881 for denying him an ambassadorship position in Paris.

Nathan Hale graduated from Yale University in 1773, joined the American Revolution and was hanged by the British for espionage in 1776.

James Hanratty was hanged in 1962 after being convicted of shooting a couple near London, but his guilt is still disputed.

Mata Hari was a professional dancer and mistress who became a spy for France during World War I. Suspected of being a double agent, she was executed in 1917.

H.H. Holmes was the alias of one of America's first serial killers. During the 1893 Columbian Exposition, he lured victims into his elaborate "murder castle."

As dictator of Iraq, Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990, leading to the Persian Gulf War in 1992. His downfall was a direct effect of the Iraq War, initiated by the U.S. in 2003. Hussein was executed in 2006.

William Kidd is one of the most famous pirates in history, remembered for his execution for piracy on the Indian Ocean.

Louis XVI was the last king of France (1774–92) in the line of Bourbon monarchs preceding the French Revolution of 1789. He was executed for treason by guillotine in 1793.

Jeffrey Lundgren was an Ohio-based cult leader who murdered a family of five.

Maximilian was the Archduke of Austria and the Emperor of Mexico from 1863-1867. He was executed in 1867 by President Benito Juárez's victorious forces.

Timothy McVeigh was convicted of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, one of the deadliest acts of terrorism in American history. He was executed for his crimes.

Thomas More is known for his 1516 book Utopia and for his untimely death in 1535, after refusing to acknowledge King Henry VIII as head of the Church of England. He was canonized by the Catholic Church as a saint in 1935.

John Allen Muhammad became an infamous figure as part of a sniper team that terrorized the Washington, DC, area for several weeks in October 2002

Benito Mussolini created the Fascist Party in Italy in 1919, eventually making himself dictator prior to World War II. He was killed in 1945.

Prime Minister of Hungary Imre Nagy withdrew Hungary from the Warsaw Pact and led Hungarians against the Soviets in the Hungarian Uprising of 1956.

Anastasia was the daughter of the last Russian tsar, Nicholas II. After she and her family were executed, rumors claimed that she might have survived.

German serial killer Peter Kürten, known as the "Dusseldorf Vampire", murdered at least nine people before surrendering to police in 1931.

Alexei Petrovich was the son of Peter the Great and heir to the Russian throne. He was sentenced to death by his father.

St. Polycarp was a 2nd century Greek bishop whose Letter to the Philippians formed the basis of Christian literature.

Mary Queen of Scots is one of the most fascinating and controversial monarchs of the 16th century who claimed the crowns of four nations in her lifetime.

Sir Walter Raleigh was an English adventurer and writer who established a colony near Roanoke Island, now known as Virginia. He was imprisoned in the Tower of London and eventually put to death for treason.

Louis Riel was the leader of the Métis in western Canada who led his people in revolt against Canadian sovereignty.

Nicholas II was the last tsar of Russia under Romanov rule. His poor handling of Bloody Sunday and Russia’s role in World War I led to his abdication and execution.

Alfred Rosenberg served as leader of the Nazi party during Hitler's imprisonment, wrote on German racial purity and was executed as a war criminal.

Ethel Rosenberg and husband Julius Rosenberg were convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage in 1951. They were both executed by the U.S. government in 1953.

Julius Rosenberg became an infamous figure in American history when he was convicted, along with his wife, Ethel Rosenberg, of giving military secrets to the Soviet Union in the early 1950s.

Emperor Haile Selassie I worked to modernize Ethiopia for several decades before famine and political opposition forced him from office in 1974.

St. Stephen is recognized as a saint and the first martyr in Christian theology. He was condemned for committing blasphemy against the Jewish Temple, and was stoned to death circa the year 36.

St. John the Baptist was a Jewish prophet who preached the imminence of God's final judgment, had several disciples and baptized a number of people.

After murdering a gas station attendant in 1957, Nebraska native Charles Starkweather embarked on a murderous rampage with girlfriend Caril Ann Fugate in 1958. Together, they killed 10 people.

Julius Streicher was a Nazi demagogue and politician who gained infamy as one of the most virulent advocates of the persecution of Jews during the 1930s.

Taksin was an 18th century Thai general and king.

Denmark Vesey was a freed slave who held meetings to organize what would have been the biggest slave revolt in U.S. history.

William Wallace, a Scottish knight, became a central early figure in the wars to secure Scottish freedom from the English, becoming one of his country's greatest national heroes.

Stanley Tookie Williams is best known for founding the Crips gang.

During the Civil War, Confederate soldier Henry Wirz commanded the Andersonville Prison, where many Union prisoners-of-war died as a result of poor conditions.

An abused child who later earned her living as a sex worker, Aileen Wuornos was found guilty of killing six men and was later executed in a Florida prison.