Ethel Rosenberg

Ethel Rosenberg was born on the 25th September 1915, in New York City. Of all the women executed in the USA since 1903, she is the only one not to have been executed for murder. Along with her husband Julius, she was convicted under Federal authority for conspiracy to commit espionage.

A soviet information courier named Harry Gold had been arrested on the 23rd May 1950. He implicated Ethel’s brother David Greenglass in a conspiracy to pass information on to the USSR. Greenglass in turn implicated both Ethel and Julius Rosenberg. Julius was arrested in July 1950 and Ethel in August of the same year. Whilst on trial, Greenglass claimed Ethel had typed notes containing secret information, which were then given to Gold, who in turn passed them on to Anatoly A. Yakovlev, a Soviet vice consul in New York.

The Rosenberg’s were condemned to death and on the evening of the 19th June 1953 and were electrocuted in Sing Sing prison, New York.