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Concept
Hanging
Summary
Hanging is killing a person by suspending them from the neck with a noose or ligature. Hanging has been a common method of capital punishment since the Middle Ages, and is the primary execution method in numerous countries and regions. The first known account of execution by hanging is in Homer's Odyssey. Hanging is also a method of suicide.
The past and past participle of hang in this sense is hanged rather than hung.
There are numerous methods of hanging in execution which instigate death either by cervical fracture or by strangulation.
The short drop is a method of hanging in which the condemned prisoner stands on a raised support such as a stool, ladder, cart, or other vehicle, with the noose around the neck. The support is then moved away, leaving the person dangling from the rope.
Suspended by the neck, the weight of the body tightens the noose around the neck, effecting strangulation and death. This typically takes 10–20 minutes.
Before 1850, the short drop was the standard method of hanging, and it is still common in suicides and extrajudicial hangings (such as lynchings and summary executions) which do not benefit from the specialised equipment and drop-length calculation tables used in the newer methods.
A short-drop variant is the Austro-Hungarian "pole" method, called Würgegalgen (literally: strangling gallows), in which the following steps take place:
The condemned is made to stand before a specialized vertical pole or pillar, approximately in height.
A rope is attached around the condemned's feet and routed through a pulley at the base of the pole.
The condemned is hoisted to the top of the pole by means of a sling running across the chest and under the armpits.
A narrow-diameter noose is looped around the prisoner's neck, then secured to a hook mounted at the top of the pole.
The chest sling is released, and the prisoner is rapidly jerked downward by the assistant executioners via the foot rope.
The executioner stands on a stepped platform approximately high beside the condemned.
Official source
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