Video: 'On This Day: Last Public Execution Held in US'

(Friday, August 14, 1936, 5:44 a.m. local time ) — Rainey Bethea, an African-American who was about 27 years old, became the last man to be publicly executed in the United States today as he was hanged in Owensboro, Kentucky, for raping and murdering Lischia Edwards, a 70-year-old white woman.

Mistakes in performing the hanging and the surrounding media circus contributed to the end of public executions in the United States.