French Revolution- Guillotine

A Search . . .


http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=guillotine&btnG=Google+Search

About 350,000 sites on a Google Search for guillotine. On the first page of the search, you can see mention of 40, 000 people who were executed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guillotine

. . . The guillotine was the only legal execution method in France until the abolition of the death penalty in 1981, apart from certain crimes against the security of the state. The last execution was of Hamida Djandoubi and took place on September 10, 1977. . . . [/color]

where in Chinese ancient history we always had these kind of horrible things :wink:

Beheading
Here's a "good" site on "Beheading," which mentions China.

http://www.richard.clark32.btinternet.co.uk/behead.html[/color]

nowadays in which countries this way of execution still remain?

Beheading
Use of the guillotine seems to have been discontinued. However, the following is from a site on beheading.

"Beheading with a sword or axe goes back a very long way in history. This method was used in the 20th century but is now confined to Saudi Arabia, Quatar, and Yemen."

A few words about the Guillotine (who seems to interest everybody except the French people! )
The Guillotine was presented by Dr Joseph Guillotin to the assembly on november 28th 1789. It has been invented by Dr Antoine Louis of the academy of surgery. It was a rapid and harmless way of execution.
With the "Guillotine", a new law was adopted: whatever the social class of the criminal was, he'd be executed the same way. The execution was for everybody, nobles and ordinary people.
On june 3rd 1791 a law specifies that the Guillotine should be used for all the executions.
The guillotine is first used on april 25th 1792 (on Nicolas-Jacques Pelletier).
Between 1793 and 1794 during the great terror ("la grande terreur" in french), 20,000 innocents are beheaded by it.
The guillotine has a great succes in France until June 29th 1939, when executions stopped to be public.
The last executed was on september 10th 1977.
The death penalty was (thank god) abolished in France on october 9th 1981.

Please excuse me if I've done errors in my translation (I'm not an English speaker)
If you speak French, here are my sources:
http://www.herodote.net/histoire11281.htm

For extra marks in your project and to impress your friends you might find this article useful:

http://www.aarrgghh.com/no_way/beheading.htm

I've given it lots of thought over the years, and I think if I was to be executed and could chose the method, the Guillotine would be my first choice.