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Graz-Karlau Prison
Graz-Karlau Prison (german: Justizanstalt Graz-Karlau) is located in Gries, the 5th district of the city of Graz, capital of the Austrian state of Styria. With a capacity of 552 inmates, Graz-Karlau is the third-largest prison in Austria. History Built between 1584 and 1590 in late Renaissance style to designs by Antonio Tade and Antonio Marmoro, it was used as a summer hunting residence for Archduke Karl II of Austria. Originally, it was called "Dobel Castle". The German word "Dobel" is also written "Tobel", a deep, ravine-like valley or can also be a place and field-name. Because the castle's name was similar to the nearby "Tobel hunting-lodge" situated in Haselsdorf-Tobelbad, it was renamed as "Karlau", after the archduke. From 1769 it was used as a workhouse and in 1794 started to keep French prisoners of war. In 1803, it became a provincial prison for inmates who had sentences of up to 10 years of imprisonment. In 1847 to 1848 and from 1869 to 1872, it was greatly enlarg ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis powers. World War II was a total war that directly involved more than 100 million personnel from more than 30 countries. The major participants in the war threw their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities behind the war effort, blurring the distinction between civilian and military resources. Aircraft played a major role in the conflict, enabling the strategic bombing of population centres and deploying the only two nuclear weapons ever used in war. World War II was by far the deadliest conflict in human history; it resulted in 70 to 85 million fatalities, mostly among civilians. Tens of millions died due to genocides (including the Holocaust), starvation, ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rome And Vienna Airport Attacks
The Rome and Vienna airport attacks were two major terrorist attacks carried out on 27 December 1985. Seven Arab terrorists attacked two airports in Rome, Italy, and Vienna, Austria with assault rifles and hand grenades. Nineteen civilians were killed and over a hundred were injured before four of the terrorists were killed by El Al Security personnel and local police, who captured the remaining three. The attacks Rome attack At 08:15 GMT, four Arab gunmen walked to the shared ticket counter for Israel's El Al Airlines and Trans World Airlines at Leonardo da Vinci-Fiumicino Airport outside Rome, Italy, fired assault rifles and threw grenades. They killed 16 and wounded 99, including American diplomat Wes Wessels, before three of the attackers were killed by El Al security, while the remaining one, Mohammed Sharam, was wounded and captured by the Italian police. The dead included General Donato Miranda Acosta, Mexican military attache, and his secretary, Genoveva Jaime Cisneros. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Udo Proksch
Udo Proksch (29 May 1934 in Rostock, Germany – 27 June 2001 in Graz, Austria) was an Austrian businessman and industrialist. In 1991, he was convicted of the murder of six people as part of a major insurance fraud. Proksch died in prison. ''Lucona'' sinking In 1977, the ship ''Lucona'' sank in the Indian Ocean, after an explosion, killing six people. Proksch, the owner of the cargo, also then owner of famous Viennese confectioners' Demel, claimed US$20 million from his insurance company, saying that the ship was carrying expensive uranium mining equipment. Fraud was suspected; but investigations were obstructed by powerful Austrian politicians who were friends of Proksch. In 1988, Proksch fled to the Philippines after Hans Pretterebner published a book about the scandal. In 1989, he returned to Vienna, incognito, but was recognized and arrested. In 1990, ''Lucona'' was located by American shipwreck hunter David Mearns, who discovered that the ship had been sunk by a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Franz Fuchs
Franz Fuchs (12 December 1949 – 26 February 2000) was an Austrian domestic terrorist who killed four people and injured 15, some seriously, using three improvised explosive devices and 24 mail bombs, which he sent in five waves between 1993 and 1997. Criminal psychologists characterized Fuchs as a highly intelligent but socially inept loner. He targeted people he considered to be foreigners, or organizations and individuals whom he believed were "friendly to foreigners". According to a study, Franz Fuchs inspired Pekka Eric-Auvien to kill 8 of his classmates during the Jokela school shooting in Finland in 2007. Mail bombs and improvised explosive devices In December 1993 he started his first wave of mailbombs. Early victims were the priest August Janisch (because of his help for refugees), Silvana Meixner ( ORF journalist for minorities), and the Mayor of Vienna, Helmut Zilk, who lost a large part of his left hand in the explosion. Other mailbombs which were discovered an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jack Unterweger
Johann "Jack" Unterweger (16 August 1950 – 29 June 1994) was an Austrian serial killer who committed murder in several countries – Austria, West Germany, Czechoslovakia, and the United States. Initially convicted in 1974 of a single murder, Unterweger began to write extensively while in prison. His work gained the attention of the Austrian literary elite, who took it as evidence that he had been rehabilitated. After significant lobbying, Unterweger was released on parole in 1990. Upon his release, he became a minor celebrity and worked as a playwright and journalist, but within months he resumed killing women. Unterweger hanged himself in prison after being convicted of nine more murders in June 1994. Early life Jack Unterweger was born August 16, 1950, in Judenburg, Styria, Austria, to Theresia Unterweger, a Viennese barmaid and waitress, and Jack Becker, an American soldier whom she had met in Trieste, Italy. Some sources describe his mother as a sex worker ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Capital Punishment
Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that the person is responsible for violating norms that warrant said punishment. The sentence ordering that an offender is to be punished in such a manner is known as a death sentence, and the act of carrying out the sentence is known as an execution. A prisoner who has been sentenced to death and awaits execution is ''condemned'' and is commonly referred to as being "on death row". Crimes that are punishable by death are known as ''capital crimes'', ''capital offences'', or ''capital felonies'', and vary depending on the jurisdiction, but commonly include serious crimes against the person, such as murder, mass murder, aggravated cases of rape (often including child sexual abuse), terrorism, aircraft hijacking, war crimes, crimes against h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hanging
Hanging is the suspension of a person by a noose or ligature around the neck.Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed. Hanging as method of execution is unknown, as method of suicide from 1325. The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' states that hanging in this sense is "specifically to put to death by suspension by the neck", though it formerly also referred to crucifixion and death by impalement in which the body would remain "hanging". Hanging has been a common method of capital punishment since medieval times, and is the primary execution method in numerous countries and regions. The first known account of execution by hanging was in Homer's ''Odyssey'' (Book XXII). In this specialised meaning of the common word ''hang'', the past and past participle is ''hanged'' instead of ''hung''. Hanging is a common method of suicide in which a person applies a ligature to the neck and brings about unconsciousness and then death by suspension or partial suspension. Methods of judicial hanging T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Albert Pierrepoint
Albert Pierrepoint (; 30 March 1905 – 10 July 1992) was an English hangman who executed between 435 and 600 people in a 25-year career that ended in 1956. His father Henry and uncle Thomas were official hangmen before him. Pierrepoint was born in Clayton in the West Riding of Yorkshire. His family struggled financially because of his father's intermittent employment and heavy drinking. Pierrepoint knew from an early age that he wanted to become a hangman, and was taken on as an assistant executioner in September 1932, aged 27. His first execution was in December that year, alongside his uncle Tom. In October 1941 he undertook his first hanging as lead executioner. During his tenure he hanged 200 people who had been convicted of war crimes in Germany and Austria, as well as several high-profile murderers—including Gordon Cummins (the Blackout Ripper), John Haigh (the Acid Bath Murderer) and John Christie (the Rillington Place Strangler). He undertook several conten ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Prisoner Of War
A prisoner of war (POW) is a person who is held captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610. Belligerents hold prisoners of war in custody for a range of legitimate and illegitimate reasons, such as isolating them from the enemy combatants still in the field (releasing and repatriating them in an orderly manner after hostilities), demonstrating military victory, punishing them, prosecuting them for war crimes, exploiting them for their labour, recruiting or even conscripting them as their own combatants, collecting military and political intelligence from them, or indoctrinating them in new political or religious beliefs. Ancient times For most of human history, depending on the culture of the victors, enemy fighters on the losing side in a battle who had surrendered and been taken as prisoners of war could expect to be either slaughtered or enslaved. Ear ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Workhouse
In Britain, a workhouse () was an institution where those unable to support themselves financially were offered accommodation and employment. (In Scotland, they were usually known as poorhouses.) The earliest known use of the term ''workhouse'' is from 1631, in an account by the mayor of Abingdon reporting that "we have erected wthn our borough a workhouse to set poorer people to work". The origins of the workhouse can be traced to the Statute of Cambridge 1388, which attempted to address the labour shortages following the Black Death in England by restricting the movement of labourers, and ultimately led to the state becoming responsible for the support of the poor. However, mass unemployment following the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815, the introduction of new technology to replace agricultural workers in particular, and a series of bad harvests, meant that by the early 1830s the established system of poor relief was proving to be unsustainable. The New Poor Law of 1834 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
