Video: 'Julius and Ethel Rosenberg Convicted of Spying Sentenced to Death PublicDomainFootage.com'

(Thursday, April 5, 1951, 12:08 p.m. EST) — Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were sentenced to death today following their conviction in New York on charges of conspiring to commit espionage for Soviet Russia.
 

Co-defendant Morton Sobell was sentenced to 30 years in prison.

Video: 'Spy Saga of Julius & Ethel Rosenberg - Decades TV Network'

The Rosenbergs were accused of providing top-secret information about radar, sonar, jet propulsion engines, and valuable nuclear weapon designs; at that time the United States was the only country in the world with nuclear weapons.

Video: 'Was Ethel Rosenberg Wrongly Convicted as a Russian Spy?'

They would be executed by the federal government of the United States in 1953 in the Sing Sing correctional facility in Ossining, New York, becoming the first American civilians to be executed for such charges and the first to suffer that penalty during peacetime.