<font color=red> Electric Chair</font>

America was never very good at carrying out executions by hanging, the method it had inherited from Britain. Too many prisoners died slowly by strangulation and even occasionally, if the drop was too long, by decapitation.
America has always been keen to seem "modern" in its execution methods - witness the invention of the gas chamber and more recently lethal injection. So it comes as little surprise that it should be the first country to introduce electricity as the preferred method.
After a particularly cruel hanging of a woman in New York, state Governor David B Hill was searching for a more acceptable form of execution. He set up a legislative committee in 1886 to examine other methods and at a time when there was a lot of interest and experimentation with electricity so it was perhaps obvious that a politician would opt for a new "more scientific" method such as electrocution.
The first electric chair was designed in 1888/9. Although the stated reason for its development was that it was to be a more humane method of execution, there was also another interesting reason.
In the 1880's, electricity was a new and novel power source. Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse were the two major players in the struggle to control electrical utilities. Technical and economic circumstances made Westinghouse's alternating current superior to Edison's direct current. Alternating current was soon adopted as the standard for electrical transmission world wide. Edison had tried to convince everyone that Westinghouse's AC current was unsafe and was delighted when New York State introduced the electric chair, which required alternating current.
The electric chair was used in 27 states at one time or another and also by the Philippines, the only country outside the USA to use it. The rest is pritty interesting