Guillotine execution

Usually, when you read a history article or story, it's mostly just dry facts and your imagination. But a photo gives something a bit different... It shows you how something actually looked, letting you understand the historical moment more intimately. Whether it would be a historical landmark, a famous person or random photo of the past - they all have fascinating stories behind them, and we're just about to show you.

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Entretien. Avant d'être abolie en 1981, la peine de mort a été progressivement mise au ban. Quittant le jour et la ville pour la nuit et la périphérie, la guillotine a peu à peu perdu sa dimension d'exemplarité, jusqu'à sa relégation définitive en prison en 1939. Entretien avec le politiste Emmanuel Taïeb.

The guillotine. That terrifying emblem of the French Revolution, which put paid to the French monarchy and many others thereafter, including Revolutionary leader Robespierre. But did you know it was…

Download this stock image: Marie Antoinette being led to the guillotine, October 16, 1793. Marie Antoinette, 1755 –1793. Queen of France. By Christiaan Josi, after Cornelis van Cuylenburgh (II). - 2BKH94K from Alamy's library of millions of high resolution stock photos, illustrations and vectors.

While the guillotine became known as a ruthlessly efficient killing machine, its eponym was actually motivated by humanitarian impulses.

Eighteenth-century images of the guillotining of King Louis XVI, which came to represent the changing nature of the French Revolution.