The first person to be executed wasWilliam Kemmler, convicted of murdering his wife with a hatchet.
Execution by electrocution, usually performed using an electric chair, is an execution method originating in the United Statesin which the condemned person is strapped to a specially built wooden chair and electrocuted through electrodes placed on the head and leg. This execution method, conceived in 1881 by a Buffalo, New York dentist named Alfred P. Southwick, was developed throughout the 1880s as a humane alternative to hanging and first used in 1890. The first person to be executed wasWilliam Kemmler, convicted of murdering his wife with a hatchet.
Pictured – OLE SPARKY
ht/ sig94
I’m going to need more info:
AC or DC? (gotta be AC)
Voltage?
Current that coursed through him?
Frequency? (60 Hz, likely)
Duration?
What fuse rating?
Autopsy? What failed first? (heart)
Last meal?
Last words?
Oh fuck it, as long as it killed the SOB!
Of course it was AC.
Something is whack about this story and I haven’t spent the time to fully flesh it out – but Edison first fried a dog to prove it was dangerous. That is where the idea of electrocution as execution came from. Not conceived independently.
Edison fried the first animal, a dog, in 1880 leading up to an elephant in 1904.
Edison was frying animals in an attempt to keep the money from his patents on D.C. rolling in instead of electric companies using A.C. – which was a Tesla thing.
Oh yeah, the stories all say how many volts were used to kill the animals. One dog was killed with only 300 volts.
If anyone is familiar with tasers at all, you realized it aint the voltage – it’s the amps that will kill you. Otherwise, how do you tase someone with 50,000 volts and they live?
Wet the sponge or you get burnt flesh.
Takes about .001 ampere traveling thru
the right organs mind you…Getting shocked
from hand to hand where the current travels
thru the chest cavity is the worse.But 3000 volts
from head to feet ain’t too shabby either.AC won out for
our power grid because it is more efficient to transmit it on long power line runs than DC.
We all know DC sucks.
They had to fry Kemmler twice. He was still breathing after the first application of AC justice. A reporter at the scene fainted, guess the smell of burning flesh/hair reminded him that he hated BBQ.
William Kemmler to his wife: “Honey, I’ve got something to ax you.”
😄
I know a GE engineer who has an electric chair story.
He had to troubleshoot a 4KV limitamp controller that wasn’t putting out high enough voltage. Apparently, the rheostat was mis-wired. The is a current limiting reactor to prevent the power system voltage from dragging down during the short circuit, during the frying. Some poor dude smoked from not getting the full jolt. Long story short, he fixed it. By the way, this one was 4000 volts, 60 hz.
Corona, the big advantage of DC is storability.
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I got hit with 10,000VDC / near-zero amperage at work one day. Instant profanity stream.
Hillary’s Throne. Let her hold a scepter when they light her corrupt ass up. That can be the ground circuit.
What, no cushions? That’s inhumane.
Yo F.D.R.! Ask Kemmler how it feels go be a pioneer.