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Why were the Rosenbergs executed?

Julius Rosenberg (1918–1953) and his wife Ethel Rosenberg (1915–1953) were executed on June 19, 1953, for giving American military secrets to the Soviet Union. When they were sentenced to die in the electric chair, they became the first Americans ever to be sentenced to death during peacetime for espionage (spying). They had appealed their conviction over the course of two years, and many people protested the unfairness of their trial.

Julius Rosenberg was an electrical engineer who had formerly worked for the U.S. Army. Both he and his wife were known communists (they believed in the political system known as communism, founded by Karl Marx, and put into effect in the Soviet Union). They were longtime members of the American Communist Party and had demonstrated in public for communist causes; thus they symbolized the threat of communism to an American public. Only a year...

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