| After the failure of two years of court appeals and of a worldwide campaign for mercy, husband and wife Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were put to death this day, becoming the first American civilians to be executed for espionage. Ethel's brother, a machinist assigned to the Manhattan Project, provided information on nuclear weapons that the Rosenbergs passed on to the Soviet Union. For years after the execution, there was debate about the Rosenbergs' guilt, but this controversy was largely ... |