Trending: Cheer up... read the Executed Today blog

Executed Today is the new blog that recalls history's executions (Getty Images)

And you thought you were having a bad day? Every morning, Executed Today, a blog (executedtoday.com) and a Twitter account (@executedtoday), recalls an execution that took place on the same date in history. Yesterday, it was a group of East German soldiers who in 1953 refused to open fire on demonstrators protesting against Communist repression in Magdeburg; the soldiers disappeared, and their bullet-ridden bodies were not found until 45 years later. On Sunday, it was Charles Stoddart and Arthur Conolly, two British diplomats beheaded in 1842 by Nasrullah Khan, the ruler of the city of Bukhara in present-day Uzbekistan. The blog also offers lists of the "10 executions that defined the 1990s", and the "10 executions that defined the 2000s", from Timothy McVeigh (2001) to Saddam Hussein (2006). Executed Today is neither pro- nor anti-death penalty, its author claims, though "I am, personally, a death-penalty opponent".