The United States federal death penalty was first used...

The United States federal death penalty was first used on June 25, 1790, when Thomas Bird was hanged for murder in Maine. Since then, 336 men and 4 women have been executed under federal auspices. Of these inmates, 134 (39%) were white; 118 (35%) black; 63 (19%) Native American; and 25 (7%) were Hispanic or unknown. In the Twentieth Century, 61% of federal executions were of minority defendants. The federal government has utilized hanging, electrocution, and the gas chamber to execute these 340 prisoners. The majority of inmates were executed for murder or crimes resulting in murder, but convictions for piracy, rape, rioting, kidnapping, and spying and espionage also yielded federal executions. There have been no federal executions since Victor Feguer was hanged in Iowa for kidnapping in 1963.