75 years ago (12 Jul 1935) Death of Alfred Dreyfus, French soldier whose treason trial in 1894 (‘The Dreyfus Affair’) became one of Europe’s most tense political dramas

The Dreyfus affair (French: l’affaire Dreyfus, pronounced: [a.f?? d??.fys]) was a political scandal that divided France in the 1890s and the early 1900s. It involved the conviction for treason in November 1894 of Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a young French artillery officer of Alsatian Jewish descent. Sentenced to life imprisonment for allegedly having communicated French military secrets to the German Embassy in Paris, Dreyfus was sent to the penal colony at Devil’s Island in French Guiana and placed in solitary confinement [more].