Joseph-Ignace Guillotin

Joseph-Ignace Guillotin was born on 28 May 1738 and trained as a doctor and freemason before entering politics. On 10 October 1789, amid the Revolution's ferment, he stood before the National Assembly and proposed adopting a mechanical device for executions, believing it would be less cruel than the botched hangings and brutal practices then in use. He never built the apparatus—that work fell to another physician, Antoine Louis—and Guillotin himself opposed the death penalty outright. The irony sealed itself: his name fused to the blade, an eponym he never sought. He died on 26 March 1814, dec…