“I only regret that I have but one life to give for my country.”

—  volunteer Nathan Hale, hanged by the British at the age of 21 in Manhattan as an “illegal combatant.”

On September 22, 1776, Hale became the first American executed for spying for his country.  His statue stands at the Central Intelligence Agency’s headquarters in Langley, Virginia.  (It is a copy of one commissioned in 1914 for Hale’s alma mater, Yale University.)

Photo credit:  “Nathan Hale Statue – Flickr – The Central Intelligence Agency” by The Central Intelligence Agency – Nathan Hale Statue. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.