WORLD HISTORY

Detailed explanation-1: -During the Reign of Terror of the mid-1790s, thousands of “enemies of the French revolution” met their end by the guillotine’s blade. Some members of the public initially complained that the machine was too quick and clinical, but before long the process had evolved into high entertainment.

Detailed explanation-2: -It worked by dropping a weighted blade down a wooden frame onto the victim’s neck, severing their head. Death would have been almost instantaneous. In 1791, a French doctor named Joseph-Ignace Guillotin proposed the machine be used in France, as a more humane method of capital punishment.

Detailed explanation-3: -In 1793, King Louis XVI was sentenced to death by the guillotine after he was found to have been conspiring with other countries and engaging in counter-revolutionary acts. He was found guilty of treason and later executed. Nine months later, Marie Antoinette, the former Queen of France, was executed by the guillotine.

Detailed explanation-4: -The first execution by guillotine was performed on a highwayman Nicolas Jacques Pelletier on 25 April 1792 in front of what is now the city hall of Paris (Place de l’Hôtel de Ville). All citizens condemned to die were from then on executed there, until the scaffold was moved on 21 August to the Place du Carrousel.