7. He Died by Hanging in December 2006
Saddam expressed the wish to be executed via a firing squad, but instead, he was hanged on December 30, 2006. This date was the first day of ‘Eid al-Adha, the festival of the sacrifice, in which devout Muslims commemorate the prophet Abraham’s near-sacrifice of his son. The irony, or perhaps symbolism, was not lost on the Iraqi people.