A US espionage case in which Julius Rosenberg and his wife Ethel were convicted of obtaining information concerning atomic weapons and passing it on to Soviet agents between 1944 and 1945. They became the first US civilians to be sentenced to death for espionage by a US court. The only seriously incriminating evidence had come from a confessed spy and the lack of clemency shown to them was an example of the intense anti-communist feeling that gripped the USA in the 1950s. Evidence released since the fall of communism suggests that Julius, at least, was guilty of espionage.