1927
In 1927, a Queens housewife named Ruth Snyder and her lover murdered her husband, bashing his head in with a window-sash weight. Caught and convicted, the two were sent to the electric chair at Sing Sing, making Snyder the first American woman to be electrocuted. The sensational story only became more so after a photographer for the upstart Daily News strapped a spy camera to his ankle and snapped a picture in the death chamber as the juice was turned on. The News doubled its newsstand circulation that day, instantly establishing itself as the masses’ paper of choice.