Here are some facts for this day. You are welcome to log your interesting, quirky or fun fact/s with your log.
On This Day - March 29th 1738
Inventor of the concept of the guillotine, Joseph Guillotin, is born.
A guillotine is an instrument for capital punishment by which the victim is decapitated. The machine consists of a tall upright frame from which is suspended a heavy blade. This blade is raised with a rope and then allowed to drop, beheading the victim.
The inventor of the guillotine was Joseph Ignace Guillotin, born on 29 March 1738 in Saintes, France. He was not a torturer; on the contrary, Dr Guillotin was a humanitarian physician and a member of a minor political reform movement that wanted to banish the death penalty completely. He sought a painless method for capital punishment as an interim step towards completely banning the death penalty. Prior to the guillotine, members of the French nobility were beheaded with a sword or axe, often requiring several blows. Commoners might be hanged or quartered, whereby their limbs were tied to four oxen and the animals were driven in four different directions, ripping the person apart.
Guillotin worked with German engineer and harpsichord maker Tobias Schmidt to develop the concept of a machine that would behead painlessly. The final product was designed by Dr Antoine Louis, secretary of the College of Surgeons. In 1791, a law was passed in France requiring all capital punishment to be carried out by guillotine. Assistant executioner and carpenter Leon Berger further modified and improved the machine in 1870.