Hanging
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Hanging is killing a person by suspending them from the neck with a noose or ligature. Hanging has been a standard method of capital punishment since the Middle Ages, and has been the primary executio
Detail from a painting by Pisanello, 1436–1438
Execution of guards and kapos of the Stutthof concentration camp on 4 July 1946 by short-drop hanging. In the foreground are the female overseers: Jenny-Wanda Barkmann, Ewa Paradies, Elisabeth Becker, Wanda Klaff, Gerda Steinhoff (left to right).
Mass execution using "pole-hanging" of Serbs by the Austro-Hungarian army in 1916
The execution of Henry Wirz in 1865; Wirz was given a standard drop, which did not break his neck
Gallows
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A gallows is a frame or elevated beam, typically wooden, from which objects can be suspended or "weighed". Gallows were thus widely used to suspend public weighing scales for large and heavy objects s
Unidentified men wait at the gallows before execution of Melquiades Chapa and Jose Buenrostro on May 19, 1916, in Brownsville, Texas.
A hangman positions the noose around the neck of a Japanese war criminal as he is held steady by a British military officer just prior to his execution by hanging at the gallows in Changi Prison in Singapore 1946. The condemned man is standing within a circle on the trapdoor, and on either side of him are two other circles indicating that the gallows had the provision for multiple simultaneous executions.
Illustration of hanging during the Thirty Years' War
These gallows in Tombstone Courthouse State Historic Park are maintained for historical purposes by Arizona State Parks.