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Guillotine. The guillotine used in Luxembourg between 1789 and 1821. A guillotine ( / ˈɡɪlətiːn, - loʊ -/ GHIH-lə-teen, -loh-) is an apparatus designed for efficiently carrying out executions by beheading. The device consists of a tall, upright frame with a weighted and angled blade suspended at the top. The condemned person is ...
The Maiden (also known as the Scottish Maiden) is an early form of guillotine, or gibbet, that was used between the 16th and 18th centuries as a means of execution in Edinburgh, Scotland. The device was introduced in 1564 during the reign of Mary Queen of Scots, and was last used in 1716. It long predates the use of the guillotine during the ...
Paper cutters are also used for cutting thin sheet metal, cardboard, and plastic. A variant of this design uses a wheel-shaped blade mounted on a sliding shuttle attached to a rail. This type of paper cutter is known as a rotary paper cutter. Advantages of this design include being able to make wavy cuts, and perforations or to simply to score ...
Proposing a painless method for executions, inspiring the guillotine. Joseph-Ignace Guillotin ( French: [ʒozɛf iɲas ɡijɔtɛ̃]; 28 May 1738 – 26 March 1814) was a French physician, politician, and freemason who proposed on 10 October 1789 the use of a device to carry out executions in France, as a less painful method of execution than ...
The guillotine was first used on Nicolas Jacques Pelletier on 25 April 1792. Guillotine usage then spread to other countries such as Germany (where it had been used since before the revolution), Italy, Sweden (used in a single execution), the Netherlands and French colonies in Africa, Canada, French Guiana and French Indochina. Although other ...
Many German states had used a guillotine-like device known as a Fallbeil ("falling axe") since the 17th and 18th centuries, and decapitation by guillotine was the usual means of execution in Germany until the abolition of the death penalty in West Germany in 1949. It was last used in communist East Germany in 1966.
Halifax Gibbet. Coordinates: 53°43′25″N 1°52′03″W. A replica of the Halifax Gibbet on its original site, 2008, with St Mary's Catholic church, Gibbet Street, in the background. The Halifax Gibbet / ˈhælɪfæks ˈdʒɪbɪt / was an early guillotine used in the town of Halifax, West Yorkshire, England. Estimated to have been installed ...
Executioner's sword (16th century) A decapitation scene as shown in Cosmographia universalis of Sebastian Münster (1552). An executioner's sword is a sword designed specifically for decapitation of condemned criminals (as opposed to combat ). These swords were intended for two-handed use, but were lacking a point, so that their overall blade ...