Guillotine by Sam Vaknin

The guillotine was first put to lethal use on April 25, 1792, at 3:30 PM, in Paris at the Place de Greve on the Right Bank of the Seine. It separated highwayman Nicolas Jacques Pelletier's head from the rest of his body. The device was perfected - though not invented- by Doctor Joseph Ignace Guillotin (1738 - 1814). The 'e' at the end of the noun is a later, British, addition. Ironically, he belonged to a movement seeking to abolish capital punishment altogether. Guillotine-like implements were used on delinquents from the nobility in Germany, Italy, Scotland and Persia long before the good doctor's era. Guillotin and German engineer and harpsichord maker, Tobias Schmidt, improved and industrialized it. It was Schmidt who transformed the blade, changing it from round to the familiar form and placing it at an oblique, 45 degree, angle. The process of severing the head - the blade falling, cutting through the tissues and severing the head - took less than half a second. More than 40,000 people were guillotined during the French Revolution and in its immediate aftermath (1789-1795). Nor was the guillotine abandoned after the French Revolution. As late as 1870, one Leon Berger, an assistant executioner and carpenter, added a spring system, which stopped the mouton at the bottom of the groves, a lock/blocking device at the lunette and a new release mechanism for the blade. The murderer Hamida Djandoubi was beheaded on September 10, 1977, in Marseilles, France. The guillotine was never used since.

Cleisthenes from N.S. Gills Ancient/Classical History Glossary

Cleisthenes was considered the founder of Athenian democracy, although this is disputed, with Solon sometimes credited as such. An Alcmaeonid, Cleisthenes, son of Megacles and Agariste (who was the daughter of Cleisthenes tyrant of Sicyon [c. 600 - 570 B.C.]), lived from about 570 to perhaps 508 B.C. Cleisthenes was an archon (525/4) under the Athenian tyrant Hippias, the last of the Peisistratids, but he was susequently exiled. Supported by the Delphic Oracle, Cleisthenes successfully called on the Spartans to help rid Athens of Hippias. Following the end of the Athenian tyranny, Cleisthenes lost his bid for the archonship against Isagoras for 508/7, but then stirred the Athenians to support him with promises of meaningful reforms. Isagoras called on Sparta for support, so Cleisthenes fled in 508 B.C. Under Isagoras, 700 powerful families, including the Alcmaeonids, were sent from Athens. Isagoras also disbanded the Council of 400 [see Boule]. The Athenians rioted. Cleisthenes was recalled from exile to put in place his democratic reforms -- most important of which was his rearrangement of the citizens into trittyes -- that created direct democracy. He gave a voice to the nonelite Athenians, creating a Council of 500, a tribally organized hoplite army, and competitive dithyrambic choruses [Pritchard]. He may have established the Pnyx as the meeting place for the assembly. He may also have been responsible for the institution of ostracism. We don't know what happened to him after or when he died.