Where was the guillotine invented? Detailed answer

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Where was the guillotine invented? Detailed answer

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Where was the guillotine invented?

"Gallows from Halifax" consisted of two five-meter wooden poles, between which hung an iron blade. The blade was mounted on a lead-filled crossbar, controlled by a rope and a collar. Official documents show that at least fifty-three people were executed with this weapon between 1286 and 1650.

Medieval Halifax lived by the cloth trade. Huge cuts of expensive fabric were left to dry near the mills on wooden frames. Theft became a serious problem for the city, and merchants needed an effective deterrent.

This and a similar later device called "The Maiden" may well have inspired the French to borrow the idea and give it their own name.

Dr. Joseph Guyotin was a humane and gentle man, an anatomy professor who did not like public executions. In 1789 Guyotin presented to the National Assembly an ambitious project to reform the French penitentiary system and make it more humane. The doctor proposed a universal mechanical method of execution that did not discriminate between commoners (who had previously been rather clumsily hanged) in relation to the rich and aristocrats (who were relatively cleanly chopped off with a sword or ax).

Most of Guyotin's proposals were rejected outright, but the idea of an effective murder weapon was firmly planted in the deputies' heads. The initiative was picked up and improved by Dr. Antoine Louis, secretary of the Academy of Surgery. It was Louis, and not Guyotin, who became the author of the drawings, according to which in 1792 the first working device with a characteristic heavy oblique knife was made. He was even dubbed, for short, "Louison" ("Louison"), or "Louisette" ("Louisette") - in honor of the creator.

However, later on, the name of Guyotin somehow stuck to the "death machine" in some incomprehensible way and, despite all the efforts of his family, stubbornly holds on to this day. Contrary to popular belief, Guyotin was not killed by his mechanical namesake; he died in 1814 from an infection resulting from a boil on his shoulder.

The guillotine became the first "democratic" method of execution and quickly came into use throughout France. According to historians, in the first ten years, 15 thousand people were beheaded with its help. Only the Nazis in Germany executed more by guillotine: from 1938 to 1945, the number of executed criminals amounted to about 40 thousand people.

The last Frenchman to be guillotined was a Tunisian immigrant named Hamid Djandoubi, who was sentenced to death for the rape and murder of a little girl in 1977. The death penalty was finally abolished in France in 1981.

It is impossible to check exactly how long a severed head remains conscious. According to optimistic estimates, from five to thirteen seconds.

Author: John Lloyd, John Mitchinson

Random interesting fact from the Great Encyclopedia:

What do the colored rings on the Olympic flag mean?

Intertwined multi-colored rings on the white cloth of the Olympic flag - from left to right: blue, black, red (top row), yellow and green (bottom row) colors - should symbolize the unification of all continents in the Olympic movement. By tradition, the blue ring symbolizes Europe, the yellow one - Asia, the black one - Africa, the green one - Australia, the red one - America.

Such a flag was proposed by Baron Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Olympic Games, combining the colors of all national flags on it.

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