Rainey Bethea walks up the stairs with guards for his public execution, in this Aug. 15, 1936, file photo in Owensboro, KY. The era of public executions in the United States sputtered to a halt after 20,000 turned out for the 1936 hanging of Bethea, a black man convicted of raping and killing a white woman. (AP file photo)

A photo from the last public execution in Kentucky, taken in 1936.

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Four Lincoln conspirators – David Herold, Lewis Powell, George Atzerodt and Mary Surratt were hanged in 1865.

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