They smelled a Surratt

A blow was struck for equality on this day in 1865. Mary Surratt became the first woman executed by hanging by the federal government. She was the proprietress of a boarding house in Washington, D. C. Her son was a friend of the actor John Wilkes Booth. Those two and some other conspirators met in the house to plot the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, which was carried out on April 14, 1865. Mary Surratt was arrested and tried for conspiracy, and sentenced to death by a military commission. Whether she was guilty is still is a controversy. She and four others were hanged on July 7. Her son, who had fled,  was found and later brought to trial, but released when the government failed to bring an indictment.

The story is the subject of an excellent 2010 movie called "The Conspirator." Robin Wright (shown in picture), the former Mrs. Sean Penn, played Mary Surratt.  

This day in hysteria

Edward Gibbon completed The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire on this day in 1787. The six-volume work was the labor of almost 15 years. On the occasion he wrote:

"It was on the ...night of the 27th of June, 1787, between the hours of eleven and twelve, that I wrote the last lines of the last page in a summer-house in my garden. ... I will not dissemble the first emotions of joy on the recovery of my freedom; and perhaps the establishment of my fame. But my pride was soon humbled, and a sober melancholy was spread over my mind by the idea that I had taken my everlasting leave of an old and agreeable friend."

In Decline and Fall Gibbon wrote:

"History is little more than the register of the crimes, follies and misfortunes of mankind."

History in the making: The Misforgotten is now available online for the ludicrously low price of $1.99. It's a crime and a folly! Take a look.