On this day in 1890 axe murderer William Kemmler became the first person executed by electric chair. The most common form of execution at the end of the 19th century was hanging, but the condemned were known to hang for up to half an hour before finally dying. He was shocked with over a thousand volts of electricity for two minuets and the current was stopped because smoke was coming from Kemmler's corpse.
On this day in 1945 the first of two atomic bombs dropped on a civilian population was detonated over Hiroshima, Japan. Hiroshima was chosen because it had largely been left unscathed by US bombing runs, and no one knew the extent of the damage an atomic bomb could do on a city. Approximately 80,000 people were killed by the bomb itself and another 40,000 died within the first year from radiation poisoning.
On this day in 1964 Prometheus, the worlds oldest tree was cut down. It was named Prometheus by a group of researchers who discover the grove of bristlecone pine trees in eastern Nevada. It was estimated to be at least 5,000 years old when a graduate student from North Carolina chopped it down because he wasn't getting good core samples. Good job guy!