November 30: Today's date commemorates the enactment of penal reform that the Grand Duke of Tuscany, Pietro Leopoldo of Hapsburg-Lorraine who was the first ruler to abolish the death penalty or capital punishment, on November 30, 1786.

Emperor Leopold II in the regalia of the Order of the Golden Fleece.

Cesare Beccaria’s book “Of Crimes and Punishment”, 1764, wrote against the death penalty, during the Italian enlightenment. Therefore, the Grand Duke of Tuscany was the first territory in which death penalty was abolished as of November 30, 1786.

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Consequently, November 30 became considered as the day of the "Cities for Life", in the world named "Cities for Life Day".

Cities for life day: International day against death penalty

Later at the time, the Grand Duke Pietro Leopoldo was crowned emperor of the Holy Roman Empire in Vienna, Austria, under the name of Leopold II.

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