Execution of Rosenbergs

Date: June 19, 1953 • Location: Moscow, Russia

Americans Julius and Ethel Rosenberg (pictured) were executed as spies for passing nuclear weapons secrets to the Soviet Union.

Julius Rosenberg and Ethel Rosenberg were an American married couple who were convicted of spying for the Soviet Union, including providing top-secret information about American radar, sonar, jet propulsion engines, and nuclear weapon designs. They were executed by the federal government of the United States in 1953 using New York's state execution chamber in Sing Sing in Ossining, New York, becoming the first American civilians to be executed for such charges and the first to be executed during peacetime.