Joe Hill (1879 - 1915) was a Swedish-American labor activist, songwriter, and member of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) who was executed by the state on this day in 1915. Hill, an immigrant worker frequently facing unemployment and underemployment, became a popular songwriter and cartoonist for the union.

His most famous songs include "The Preacher and the Slave", "There Is Power in a Union", and "Casey Jones - the Union Scab", which describes the harsh lives itinerant workers, and call for them to organize to improve their working conditions.

In 1914, John G. Morrison, a Salt Lake City area grocer and former policeman, and his son were shot and killed by two men. The same evening, Hill arrived at a doctor's office with a gunshot wound, and briefly mentioned a fight over a woman.

He refused to explain further, even after he was accused of the grocery store murders on the basis of his injury. Hill was convicted of the murders in a controversial trial and executed on this day in 1915, despite widespread calls for clemency, including from President Woodrow Wilson and Helen Keller.

After his arrest, Hill wrote the following about his case: "Owing to the prominence of Mr. Morrison, there had to be a 'goat' [scapegoat] and the undersigned being, as they thought, a friendless tramp, a Swede, and worst of all, an IWW, had no right to live anyway, and was therefore duly selected to be 'the goat'."