“It is unbelievable.”
Margaretha Geertruida MacLeod, better known by the stage name Mata Hari, was convicted of spying during World War I and sentenced to death by firing squad. The exotic dancer and courtesan was 41 years old when she was executed by a firing squad consisting of 12 soldiers just before dawn, in the moat of the Château de Vincennes, Paris. According to an eyewitness account, Mata Hari was not bound and refused a blindfold. She defiantly blew a kiss to the firing squad.