Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, a married couple convicted of
conspiracy to commit espionage in 1951, are put to death in the
electric chair. The execution marked the dramatic finale of the
most controversial espionage case of the Cold War. Julius was
arrested in July 1950, and Ethel in August of that same year, on
the charge of conspiracy to commit espionage. Specifically, they
were accused of heading a spy ring that passed top-secret
information concerning the atomic bomb to the Soviet Union. The
Rosenbergs vigorously protested their innocence, but after a
brief trial in March 1951 they were convicted. On April 5, 1951,
a judge sentenced them to death. The pair was taken to Sing Sing
Prison in Ossining, New York, to await execution. During the
next two years, the couple became the subject of both national
and international debate. Many people believed that the
Rosenbergs were the victims of a surge of hysterical
anticommunist feeling in the United States, and protested that
the death sentence handed down was cr