WEBVTT - Invention Classic: Guillotine 0:00:07.360 --> 0:00:10.440 Hey, Welcome to Invention. My name is Robert Lamb and 0:00:10.480 --> 0:00:14.000 I'm Joe McCormick, and we're bringing you a classic episode 0:00:14.000 --> 0:00:16.600 of Invention. Is the show old enough to have classics? Now? 0:00:16.760 --> 0:00:18.759 If so, this is a classic? Yes, I think it? 0:00:18.920 --> 0:00:20.560 Yet why not? I think this might have been the 0:00:20.600 --> 0:00:23.079 first episode of the show we recorded. Was yeah, I 0:00:23.120 --> 0:00:25.239 was looking back. This is the first episode we put out. 0:00:25.440 --> 0:00:28.560 We went in there grizzly, and now it's Halloween, so 0:00:28.600 --> 0:00:32.400 we figured let's replay this grizzly classic of Invention. Right, 0:00:32.440 --> 0:00:34.760 it's seasonally appropriate, but it also turned out to be 0:00:34.800 --> 0:00:37.320 I thought, a very nuanced and interesting subject. So this 0:00:37.520 --> 0:00:41.400 is our early episode of Invention on the guillotine. We 0:00:41.440 --> 0:00:47.479 hope you enjoy. Welcome to Invention, a production of I 0:00:47.600 --> 0:00:54.880 Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Invention. I'm Robert Lamb and 0:00:55.040 --> 0:00:57.520 I'm Joe McCormick. And you might know Robert and I 0:00:58.000 --> 0:01:00.520 from our other show Stuff to Blow your Mind, our 0:01:00.560 --> 0:01:03.160 other show in the house Stuff Works Network. But today 0:01:03.480 --> 0:01:08.040 you apparently have somehow wandered into our brand new Curiosity 0:01:08.120 --> 0:01:11.960 Store of Inventions, where we explore human ingenuity, for good, 0:01:12.120 --> 0:01:14.600 for ill, all of the stuff that comes out of 0:01:14.600 --> 0:01:18.160 our imaginations and becomes the technology we use every day 0:01:18.280 --> 0:01:21.039 or maybe just read about in history books. Yes, the 0:01:21.080 --> 0:01:25.160 hallowed halls of technological, systematic, and cultural invention, the very 0:01:25.240 --> 0:01:29.040 human machines, customs, and systems that altered the course of history. 0:01:29.160 --> 0:01:31.360 And today we're talking about one of the most useful 0:01:31.360 --> 0:01:34.920 inventions of all time. It's got to be the and Robert, 0:01:34.920 --> 0:01:36.520 before I say it, do you say it like a 0:01:36.560 --> 0:01:39.679 French guy's name, or like what a fish breathes with? 0:01:40.200 --> 0:01:42.720 I go with guillotine because it sounds a little more 0:01:42.760 --> 0:01:45.600 like an open face sandwich that way, and also it 0:01:45.640 --> 0:01:48.720 has the the G has more of a sound to it. Yeah, 0:01:48.760 --> 0:01:51.520 I like how it sounds kind of like the minotar 0:01:51.800 --> 0:01:56.520 the guillotine. But but apparently guillotine in English is also 0:01:56.640 --> 0:02:00.480 somewhat acceptable pronunciation. I don't think there's a firm uh 0:02:00.720 --> 0:02:04.160 ruling one way or another from the lords of English pronunciation. Now, 0:02:04.160 --> 0:02:06.520 one thing is for certain as we we venture into 0:02:06.560 --> 0:02:10.120 this world of the guillotine. Beheadings themselves are just a 0:02:10.200 --> 0:02:13.120 time honored way for one human being to kill another. 0:02:13.560 --> 0:02:16.160 It's a wound that still can't be repaired, and it is, 0:02:16.200 --> 0:02:20.000 without questions certain death. Now one thing I was thinking 0:02:20.040 --> 0:02:22.800 about to illustrate this is what would you even say 0:02:22.960 --> 0:02:26.880 is the quote cause of death in a beheading? So well, 0:02:26.919 --> 0:02:30.200 blood loss, loss of oxygen to the brain. Basically, it 0:02:30.320 --> 0:02:32.800 just cuts off. It cuts off your all your plumbing 0:02:32.840 --> 0:02:36.600 systems from all of your your your your thinking systems. Yeah, 0:02:36.680 --> 0:02:38.760 it makes it makes you think about how often when 0:02:38.760 --> 0:02:41.360 you hear phrases like clinically dead, that can refer to 0:02:41.400 --> 0:02:44.840 something about circulation, like the cessation of the heartbeat. Um. 0:02:44.880 --> 0:02:47.760 But yeah, so when you separate the head from the body, 0:02:47.840 --> 0:02:49.920 I guess you've got to be really rigorous about what 0:02:49.960 --> 0:02:52.320 you mean by dead. Though I guess it also happens 0:02:52.320 --> 0:02:53.960 pretty quickly so you don't have to worry about it 0:02:54.000 --> 0:02:56.400 too much. But yeah, all the blood comes out of 0:02:56.400 --> 0:02:58.920 the head, immediate loss of blood pressure, which means the 0:02:58.960 --> 0:03:02.440 brain can't get oxyd gin, which means the brain can't work. Yeah. 0:03:02.440 --> 0:03:05.200 I it's something that's just cemented in our mythology as well, right. 0:03:05.240 --> 0:03:06.600 I mean, you want to kill a vampire, you want 0:03:06.639 --> 0:03:08.760 to kill a medusa, you want to kill a highlander, 0:03:09.080 --> 0:03:11.280 what do you do? You cut their head off? There 0:03:11.360 --> 0:03:15.280 is something just supernaturally potent about this form of death. Well, 0:03:15.280 --> 0:03:17.239 I think that's absolutely true, and you see that in 0:03:17.280 --> 0:03:21.200 a lot of archaeological finds of beheadings from human history. Like, 0:03:21.680 --> 0:03:24.280 here's a kind of strange fact. A lot of times 0:03:24.320 --> 0:03:28.440 when you find beheaded humans from ages past, there appears 0:03:28.480 --> 0:03:33.360 to be evidence that the people were beheaded posthumously. Why 0:03:33.400 --> 0:03:35.880 did that happen? There are a lot of ways you 0:03:35.880 --> 0:03:37.960 could explain it. I mean that you would take a 0:03:38.000 --> 0:03:40.280 dead person and cut off their head. Maybe there's some 0:03:40.360 --> 0:03:42.800 sort of ritual function going on here, might be a 0:03:42.880 --> 0:03:47.120 human sacrifice. Maybe there's some kind of symbolic form of 0:03:47.200 --> 0:03:50.240 justice being done, if it's the corps of a criminal 0:03:50.360 --> 0:03:52.400 or an enemy or something. But a lot of times 0:03:52.440 --> 0:03:55.560 it appears like it might be a form of apotropaic magic, 0:03:56.000 --> 0:03:58.600 the kind of magic you would use to ward off 0:03:58.680 --> 0:04:01.200 evil or bad spirit. It's in the same way that 0:04:01.240 --> 0:04:04.640 you might find a skeleton from hundreds of years ago 0:04:04.720 --> 0:04:07.040 with an iron rod driven through its hard or with 0:04:07.080 --> 0:04:10.720 a brick in its mouth, and say the tombs underneath Venice. Yeah, 0:04:10.720 --> 0:04:14.520 there's like a dismantling of the the individual that that 0:04:14.600 --> 0:04:17.359 seems evident in these acts um you know, and we 0:04:17.400 --> 0:04:22.479 see acts of ritual decapitation dating back thousands of years. 0:04:22.680 --> 0:04:25.039 For instance, there's evidence in Brazil that dates back to 0:04:25.080 --> 0:04:28.560 at least nine thousand BC, and it's UH and in 0:04:28.600 --> 0:04:32.320 it we find a human skull draped and amputated, hands 0:04:32.440 --> 0:04:35.720 palm side down, covering the face as if as if 0:04:35.760 --> 0:04:39.440 in grief. That's from place called Lapa Dosanto in UH 0:04:39.600 --> 0:04:42.039 in South America and Brazil, and a lot of bones 0:04:42.040 --> 0:04:44.640 have been discovered there. And it's not always easy to 0:04:44.680 --> 0:04:47.760 determine how to read the intention behind what you see 0:04:47.760 --> 0:04:50.279 in these people. But the yeah, there were all kinds 0:04:50.279 --> 0:04:54.560 of forms of of apparently posthumous mutilation going on in 0:04:54.600 --> 0:04:57.159 the way these bones are arranged. For example, sometimes you'll 0:04:57.200 --> 0:05:02.360 find skulls they're full of finger bones inside the skulls. 0:05:02.720 --> 0:05:04.960 What was going on? What made the people want to 0:05:05.000 --> 0:05:07.080 do that? It seems like it may well have formed 0:05:07.240 --> 0:05:11.000 some kind of magical intention, but what was it? Indeed, 0:05:11.000 --> 0:05:13.919 we can only guess now. Another kind of significance that 0:05:14.040 --> 0:05:17.680 beheading has often had in the ancient world was that 0:05:17.760 --> 0:05:20.200 it was one of the many forms of execution practiced 0:05:20.240 --> 0:05:22.720 of course in ancient Greece and Rome, UH and in 0:05:22.760 --> 0:05:27.480 fact our terms decapitation and capital punishment both come from 0:05:27.520 --> 0:05:31.040 the Latin from capit meaning head, so like capital punishment 0:05:31.360 --> 0:05:34.240 is punishment of the head, or that you you pay, 0:05:34.360 --> 0:05:36.760 you pay for a crime with your head by separating 0:05:36.760 --> 0:05:39.800 it from the other stuff. Uh. And there's some evidence 0:05:39.839 --> 0:05:43.680 that the ancient Greeks and Romans viewed beheading as not 0:05:43.800 --> 0:05:48.320 a particularly harsh punishment, but more as a particularly noble 0:05:48.440 --> 0:05:51.800 and honorable form of execution. And you see strains of 0:05:51.839 --> 0:05:54.839 this thinking carried into much more recent times, like when 0:05:54.880 --> 0:05:57.920 beheading was deployed as an execution method throughout the history 0:05:57.960 --> 0:06:01.440 of England. Not always, but it was most often reserved 0:06:01.480 --> 0:06:05.120 for the aristocracy, while common criminals might more often be 0:06:05.200 --> 0:06:09.400 killed and what was considered a less dignified way like hanging. Yeah, 0:06:09.440 --> 0:06:13.120 I mean, obviously be headings in general have probably been 0:06:13.120 --> 0:06:17.000 occurring as long as we've had weapons fine enough to 0:06:17.560 --> 0:06:20.760 inflict the blow. Uh, you know, as long as we 0:06:20.839 --> 0:06:23.240 had you know, something that couldn't knock or cut a 0:06:23.279 --> 0:06:25.920 head off. And then when you start looking at these, uh, 0:06:26.400 --> 0:06:28.840 the the use of the of of a sword or 0:06:28.839 --> 0:06:31.880 an axe and execution, you know, a lot of it 0:06:31.880 --> 0:06:34.239 comes down to the craftsmanship of that weapon, but also 0:06:34.360 --> 0:06:37.919 the skill of the individual using it. Yeah, that's that's 0:06:38.000 --> 0:06:40.560 a real kicker, isn't it. I Mean, when you contract 0:06:40.600 --> 0:06:42.719 somebody to do a job for you, a lot of times, 0:06:42.720 --> 0:06:45.200 if you don't have a previous relationship with you, you 0:06:45.200 --> 0:06:46.920 don't know what kind of work they're gonna do. You 0:06:47.160 --> 0:06:49.200 want to find those people you can trust, but it's 0:06:49.240 --> 0:06:51.800 hard to find a trust or the execution er that 0:06:51.880 --> 0:06:54.040 you know is going to cut your head off right right, 0:06:54.160 --> 0:06:56.280 Like if you really got to put yourself in the 0:06:56.320 --> 0:06:59.000 in the shoes of the condemned here right. Uh. You know, 0:06:59.000 --> 0:07:00.880 obviously you don't want to be stone to death. You know, 0:07:01.040 --> 0:07:02.960 you don't want to be thrown into that burlap sack 0:07:03.000 --> 0:07:05.599 with two wild animals and thrown into the river. You 0:07:05.600 --> 0:07:09.960 would probably prefer a nice, clean beheading, but nobody wants 0:07:10.000 --> 0:07:13.720 a less than perfect beheading. If the local warlord is 0:07:13.760 --> 0:07:16.960 doing it, you know, that's one thing. Uh, you know, unless, however, 0:07:17.000 --> 0:07:20.400 you're worried about the war lord inflicting an intentionally less 0:07:20.400 --> 0:07:24.160 than perfect stroke, you know, out of personal malice. If 0:07:24.320 --> 0:07:27.360 if it's a professional executioner that's doing the honors, well 0:07:27.400 --> 0:07:29.960 that's either really good or really bad, depending on how 0:07:30.040 --> 0:07:31.920 you look at it. Like the idea of a trained 0:07:32.000 --> 0:07:35.160 specialist doing the ded That sounds good. But on the 0:07:35.160 --> 0:07:37.720 other hand, at death via the sort of person who 0:07:37.760 --> 0:07:40.400 either seeks this line of work out or is not 0:07:40.560 --> 0:07:43.680 suited for any other form of labor, that's a little 0:07:43.880 --> 0:07:47.320 uh frightening, I would say. Plus, do you really want 0:07:47.360 --> 0:07:50.200 to be toward the bottom of an executioner's list for 0:07:50.240 --> 0:07:53.880 the day after they're tired from swinging that big old axe, 0:07:54.160 --> 0:07:57.120 like it's your turn on Friday afternoon? Yeah? Like you 0:07:57.200 --> 0:07:58.720 kind of I want to be up there. I would 0:07:58.760 --> 0:08:00.520 want to be up there first, let to get that 0:08:00.520 --> 0:08:03.000 that first blow in on me. I must admit I 0:08:03.000 --> 0:08:05.800 don't think I had ever much considered the horrors of 0:08:05.800 --> 0:08:09.160 a weak strike from the executioner until Game of Thrones 0:08:09.240 --> 0:08:13.400 came around, and then that I suddenly began to think, like, oh, yes, 0:08:13.520 --> 0:08:16.640 this could go very wrong. But George R. Martin did 0:08:16.680 --> 0:08:20.119 not make up this concept, obviously, of of being weak 0:08:20.200 --> 0:08:23.440 at swinging the executioner sword or the acts. History is 0:08:23.560 --> 0:08:27.360 replete with stories of botched beheadings, and they are horrific 0:08:27.840 --> 0:08:30.560 and unfortunately sometimes kind of funny. I want to tell 0:08:30.600 --> 0:08:33.280 you a couple uh, this one is not so funny. 0:08:33.800 --> 0:08:37.720 And this concerns Mary, the Queen of Scots. So during 0:08:37.760 --> 0:08:40.720 the reign of Protestant Queen Elizabeth the First of England 0:08:40.720 --> 0:08:43.160 in the sixteenth century, there was obviously a lot of 0:08:43.200 --> 0:08:47.280 anxiety about succession because Elizabeth had been born to King 0:08:47.320 --> 0:08:50.920 Henry the Eighth and his second wife Anne Boleyn, after 0:08:51.040 --> 0:08:54.359 Henry's first marriage to Catherine of Aragon had been annulled, 0:08:54.679 --> 0:08:57.800 and obviously lots of people at the time, especially some Catholics, 0:08:57.840 --> 0:09:02.760 had opinions about that right. And Elizabeth's cousin, Mary Stewart, 0:09:02.840 --> 0:09:05.560 was born to James the Fifth of Scotland, who was 0:09:05.679 --> 0:09:09.160 descended from a legitimate royal line, and so many Catholic 0:09:09.160 --> 0:09:12.559 supporters thought, well, maybe Mary actually has a more legitimate 0:09:12.559 --> 0:09:15.360 claim to the throne than Elizabeth does. And so Mary 0:09:15.440 --> 0:09:19.600 was eventually implicated in an assassination plot against Elizabeth in 0:09:19.640 --> 0:09:22.719 fifteen eighty six, at least she was allegedly involved in it, 0:09:23.040 --> 0:09:26.000 and she was sentenced to execution in fifty seven. So 0:09:26.320 --> 0:09:28.960 you've got Mary Stewart, Mary Queen of Scott's, going to 0:09:29.000 --> 0:09:32.520 her execution, and the story goes that she's blindfolded and 0:09:32.600 --> 0:09:35.560 she gets helped to the block and the executioner wearing 0:09:35.600 --> 0:09:39.320 all black, raises up his axe to kill her, but 0:09:39.440 --> 0:09:42.360 instead of cutting through her neck, he misses, and he 0:09:42.480 --> 0:09:45.040 hits her on the head, and then some report that 0:09:45.080 --> 0:09:49.360 she murmurs Sweet Jesus in shock before the executioner raises 0:09:49.400 --> 0:09:52.360 his axe a second time and then strikes again and 0:09:52.440 --> 0:09:55.640 still fails to cut her head off completely. And finally 0:09:55.679 --> 0:09:58.880 he quote just sawed through what remained of her neck. 0:10:00.040 --> 0:10:03.719 That's that's that's rough for Mary. Yeah, and this is 0:10:03.760 --> 0:10:07.520 you know, this is presumed a main event be heading here. 0:10:07.640 --> 0:10:10.040 So right, this is before a royal audience, right, so 0:10:10.120 --> 0:10:12.840 this would have to be either an active just just 0:10:12.840 --> 0:10:16.800 just an utterly inepped executioner, or one that is intentionally 0:10:16.840 --> 0:10:18.480 doing a bad job out of mouth. It's like there 0:10:18.480 --> 0:10:20.720 seems to be very little room in between. It's hard 0:10:20.760 --> 0:10:23.520 to understand what happened here because you know, we only 0:10:23.520 --> 0:10:25.480 have accounts from the time, which may not even be 0:10:25.520 --> 0:10:28.600 fully reliable. We're relying on what people told us they 0:10:28.640 --> 0:10:31.360 saw there, right, And there could be some objective in 0:10:31.720 --> 0:10:34.200 crafting a version of the tale that sounds more inapt 0:10:34.240 --> 0:10:37.120 than it actually was. But it actually gets worse because 0:10:37.160 --> 0:10:41.360 apparently so it's described sometimes that the executioner appeared horrified 0:10:41.400 --> 0:10:43.840 at what was going on. But the headsman, after he 0:10:43.880 --> 0:10:46.000 got her head off, he took hold of the severed 0:10:46.000 --> 0:10:47.880 head and he held it up in front of the 0:10:47.880 --> 0:10:49.720 crowd so he could hold up the severed head and 0:10:49.720 --> 0:10:53.400 say God save Queen Elizabeth. But he grasped Mary's head 0:10:53.400 --> 0:10:55.319 by the hair, and it turned out the hair was 0:10:55.360 --> 0:10:58.760 a wig, so the head fell down and rolled away, 0:10:58.880 --> 0:11:01.800 leaving him holding only a hacked up, bloody wig while 0:11:01.960 --> 0:11:05.520 proclaiming his true queen. And then another part of the story, 0:11:05.559 --> 0:11:08.680 maybe maybe not to be believed, is that after Mary's 0:11:08.679 --> 0:11:11.000 head rolled away, her lips kept moving as if she 0:11:11.120 --> 0:11:13.640 was talking or praying. Okay, some of that sounds like 0:11:13.640 --> 0:11:15.559 it might have been embellished, but it also sounds like 0:11:15.600 --> 0:11:18.000 this guy was a real hack, no pun intended. Well, 0:11:18.040 --> 0:11:20.400 I got an even worse hack for you, because there 0:11:20.480 --> 0:11:25.280 was a seventeenth century English executioner named jack Ketch. Catch 0:11:25.320 --> 0:11:29.040 spelled as like catch up, catch yeah, or like what's 0:11:29.120 --> 0:11:34.480 the kid in the Pokemon's I have no idea. Our 0:11:34.640 --> 0:11:38.120 very knowledgeable producer Paul just tells me it is ash 0:11:38.240 --> 0:11:41.080 catch him. Okay, I guess he's got to catch him. 0:11:41.120 --> 0:11:43.800 All right, it's like jack Ketch him right, the harr rider. 0:11:43.880 --> 0:11:45.920 That's what comes to my mind. I don't well anyway, 0:11:45.920 --> 0:11:48.560 this is jack Ketch K E T C H so 0:11:48.679 --> 0:11:52.640 Jack Ketch birthday unknown died in six six who was 0:11:52.760 --> 0:11:56.000 notorious for being a complete screw up at his job 0:11:56.280 --> 0:12:01.400 and bungling executions. A couple of examples. In sixteen eighty three, 0:12:01.760 --> 0:12:04.559 Catch performed the beheading of William Lord Russell, who was 0:12:04.600 --> 0:12:07.839 convicted for treason in his role of in his role 0:12:07.840 --> 0:12:10.520 in the Rye House plot, which was against King Charles 0:12:10.559 --> 0:12:13.920 the Second of England, and Catches beheading of Russell was 0:12:13.960 --> 0:12:18.040 reportedly just this clumsy horror, with Catch whacking Russell again 0:12:18.040 --> 0:12:20.920 and again with the axe, but repeatedly failing to get 0:12:20.960 --> 0:12:24.520 his head off. And apparently after this, Catch defended himself 0:12:24.520 --> 0:12:28.160 by complaining that Russell wouldn't hold still. And then you 0:12:28.240 --> 0:12:32.440 got the second one later, James, Duke of Monmouth, he 0:12:32.480 --> 0:12:35.120 went to the block for the Monmouth Rebellion of sixteen 0:12:35.160 --> 0:12:38.160 eighty five, and he tried to pay Catch not to 0:12:38.240 --> 0:12:42.480 screw up his execution. He's recorded as saying, quote, here 0:12:42.480 --> 0:12:45.480 are six guineas for you, pray do your business well 0:12:45.600 --> 0:12:48.120 do not serve me as you did, my Lord Russell. 0:12:48.520 --> 0:12:50.960 I have heard you struck him three or four times. 0:12:51.400 --> 0:12:54.240 Then Monmouth gave three more guineas to his servant who 0:12:54.320 --> 0:12:57.280 was standing nearby, and told his servant to pay Catch 0:12:58.040 --> 0:13:01.080 only if Catch did the beheading correct to Lee. And 0:13:01.120 --> 0:13:05.200 then Catch said, I hope I shall. Then Monmouth asked 0:13:05.200 --> 0:13:07.480 to feel the axe blade, and he did, and he 0:13:07.559 --> 0:13:10.880 complained that this is too dull, and Catch said, no, 0:13:11.120 --> 0:13:14.480 it's sharp enough, it'll be heavy enough. So Monmouth got 0:13:14.520 --> 0:13:17.880 down in place to accept his fate, and Catch brought 0:13:17.920 --> 0:13:20.520 the axe down on Monmouth, and at this point it 0:13:20.640 --> 0:13:24.120 is reported that after he got hit, Monmouth lifted his 0:13:24.160 --> 0:13:27.559 head up and turned around and glared at Catch angrily. 0:13:29.440 --> 0:13:31.920 Then he got back down so Ketch could hit him again, 0:13:32.320 --> 0:13:35.280 and Catch hit him several more times, failing each time 0:13:35.280 --> 0:13:38.200 to be head him. Then Catch got frustrated and tried 0:13:38.240 --> 0:13:40.840 to walk away and quit in the middle of the execution, 0:13:40.880 --> 0:13:43.840 while Monmouth was still alive. But the crowd yelled at 0:13:43.920 --> 0:13:45.680 him and told him to go back and finish it, 0:13:45.920 --> 0:13:49.120 so finally he went back. After some more blows and 0:13:49.160 --> 0:13:51.400 the use of a knife, he finally managed to get 0:13:51.440 --> 0:13:54.800 the Duke's head off. Well, that's awful. This guy is 0:13:54.840 --> 0:13:57.120 a true hack. I wonder if that's where the word 0:13:57.160 --> 0:14:00.760 hat comes perhaps. Uh yeah, But so you had people 0:14:00.840 --> 0:14:04.240 whose job it was to administer what I guess was 0:14:04.280 --> 0:14:06.840 supposed to be the more humane form of execution at 0:14:06.840 --> 0:14:09.960 the time. I mean, this is different than being you know, uh, 0:14:10.000 --> 0:14:12.960 tortured and hanged and drawn and quartered and all that. 0:14:13.520 --> 0:14:16.400 But he this is obviously not going the way it's 0:14:16.400 --> 0:14:19.160 supposed to. And if we're going inspired by the Greek 0:14:19.160 --> 0:14:21.960 and Roman model, something is obviously wrong here, Like not 0:14:22.040 --> 0:14:25.040 only is it unnecessarily painful, this does not really seem 0:14:25.080 --> 0:14:28.880 like an honorable death. This seems humiliating. Yeah, there's nothing 0:14:28.960 --> 0:14:31.640 noble about this, you know, it's this is not a 0:14:31.840 --> 0:14:35.400 finely craft instrument wielded by a by and by an 0:14:35.440 --> 0:14:39.720 expert practitioner. This is just a clumsy exercise and horror. 0:14:40.360 --> 0:14:43.880 But what if mechanical controls could be set in place 0:14:44.640 --> 0:14:48.520 the same level of perfection, regardless of whoever you know 0:14:48.560 --> 0:14:51.200 happens to be wearing the hood, how tired they are, 0:14:51.560 --> 0:14:54.240 what sort of weapon they're using, or what sort of 0:14:54.280 --> 0:14:58.520 six stuff they're into. A machine that cannot get tired, 0:14:58.640 --> 0:15:02.240 it can't hesitate or engage in unfair punishment. It's not 0:15:02.240 --> 0:15:07.120 gonna judge you based on your your royal or commoner status. 0:15:07.520 --> 0:15:11.720 A good blade, some gravity, and a simple frame with 0:15:11.840 --> 0:15:15.320 a necklock, well that would be the guillotine. All right, 0:15:15.360 --> 0:15:17.080 We're gonna take a quick break, and when we come 0:15:17.120 --> 0:15:21.240 back we will discuss some precursors to the guillotine and 0:15:21.280 --> 0:15:29.960 the guillotine itself. All right, we're back. So the guillotine 0:15:30.000 --> 0:15:33.080 of late eighteenth century France, which I'm sure you've heard 0:15:33.120 --> 0:15:35.920 about before, that was involved in the French Revolution, the 0:15:35.960 --> 0:15:39.760 Reign of Terror, the first French Republic. That guillotine was 0:15:40.240 --> 0:15:43.560 not the first human head removal machine, not by a 0:15:43.560 --> 0:15:45.320 long shot. And we're not saying it was. You know 0:15:45.400 --> 0:15:47.840 that it was predated by people swinging in axe or 0:15:47.880 --> 0:15:49.840 a sword with their hands, of course it was. But 0:15:49.920 --> 0:15:54.359 there were organized machines for doing this job more efficiently 0:15:54.760 --> 0:15:57.840 and in a more consistent way before the guillotine was 0:15:57.960 --> 0:16:01.680 instituted in France, right, and they worked along the same principles. 0:16:01.720 --> 0:16:05.480 They maybe they weren't quite as refined, but essentially the 0:16:05.520 --> 0:16:08.040 idea is there that we should say that it was 0:16:08.080 --> 0:16:10.760 only in the aftermath of the French Revolution that people 0:16:10.800 --> 0:16:14.760 began referring to decapitation machines as guillotine. That's where the 0:16:14.800 --> 0:16:18.840 name comes from. Yes, they had equally less refined names. 0:16:18.840 --> 0:16:22.000 They had more grizzly names. One finds we'll meet a 0:16:22.000 --> 0:16:25.080 couple in a moment. So as for who invented the 0:16:25.080 --> 0:16:29.560 first general decapitation machine, this is totally unknown, lost to history, 0:16:29.640 --> 0:16:31.840 and in fact, we don't even know for sure how 0:16:31.880 --> 0:16:35.000 many societies used a device like this. There there are 0:16:35.000 --> 0:16:37.080 a lot of tales, but many of these tales might 0:16:37.080 --> 0:16:39.240 not even be true. We don't know for sure, right, 0:16:39.280 --> 0:16:43.080 And then how often is the individual uh celebrated for 0:16:43.320 --> 0:16:46.920 creating such a thing? As we'll discover the naming of 0:16:46.960 --> 0:16:49.920 the guillotine, and it doesn't really relate to the individual 0:16:50.000 --> 0:16:52.640 or individuals that created it, right. I mean a lot 0:16:52.680 --> 0:16:56.080 of people who create execution devices don't want to be 0:16:56.120 --> 0:16:59.120 associated with And when you find the people who do 0:16:59.160 --> 0:17:01.120 want to be associated with them or don't mind, you've 0:17:01.120 --> 0:17:04.080 got to kind of wonder about those people. Um. So, 0:17:04.680 --> 0:17:07.600 there are a couple of known mechanical beheading devices from 0:17:07.640 --> 0:17:11.160 England that predated the French guillotine, and one is known 0:17:11.400 --> 0:17:15.159 as the Halifax Gibbet, so the how. Halifax is a 0:17:15.200 --> 0:17:17.560 town in West Yorkshire in England, and it had this 0:17:17.600 --> 0:17:20.840 infamous beheading machine known as the Halifax Gibbet, which was 0:17:20.880 --> 0:17:24.800 allegedly used mostly to punish petty theft. So people would 0:17:24.840 --> 0:17:27.600 steal some small sum of money or something worth not 0:17:27.800 --> 0:17:31.679 very much, some cloth or something, and into the Halifax 0:17:31.760 --> 0:17:35.520 Gibbet they would go. It was described in an eighteen 0:17:35.560 --> 0:17:38.840 thirty seven history by an author named William White in 0:17:38.880 --> 0:17:42.679 the following way quote. The executions always took place on 0:17:42.720 --> 0:17:45.680 the Great market day in order to strike the more 0:17:45.880 --> 0:17:48.919 terror into the neighborhood. When the criminal was brought to 0:17:48.960 --> 0:17:51.440 the gibbet, which stood a little way out of the town, 0:17:51.720 --> 0:17:54.240 where part of the stone platform may still be seen 0:17:54.359 --> 0:17:57.720 on Gibbet Hill. The execution was performed by means of 0:17:57.720 --> 0:18:00.920 an engine, which was raised upon a plat form four 0:18:00.960 --> 0:18:04.399 ft high and thirteen feet square, faced on every side 0:18:04.400 --> 0:18:07.439 with stone, and ascended by a flight of steps. In 0:18:07.480 --> 0:18:10.680 the middle of this platform was placed two upright pieces 0:18:10.720 --> 0:18:13.800 of timber fifteen feet high, joined at the top by 0:18:13.800 --> 0:18:17.639 a transverse beam. Within these was a square block of 0:18:17.680 --> 0:18:21.000 wood four ft and a half long, which moved up 0:18:21.000 --> 0:18:23.840 and down by means of grooves made for that purpose. 0:18:23.960 --> 0:18:26.480 To the lower part of the sliding block was fastened 0:18:26.480 --> 0:18:29.480 in iron axe of the weight of seven pounds and 0:18:29.520 --> 0:18:33.040 twelve ounces. The axe, thus fixed, was drawn up to 0:18:33.080 --> 0:18:35.600 the top by a cord and pulley. At the end 0:18:35.600 --> 0:18:38.240 of the cord was a pin, which, being fixed to 0:18:38.280 --> 0:18:41.560 the block, kept it suspended till the moment of execution. 0:18:41.840 --> 0:18:44.320 When the culprit, having placed his head on the block, 0:18:44.680 --> 0:18:47.680 the pin was withdrawn and his head was instantly severed 0:18:47.720 --> 0:18:51.200 from his body. If the offender was condemned for stealing 0:18:51.240 --> 0:18:54.080 an ox, a sheep or a horse, the end of 0:18:54.119 --> 0:18:57.840 the rope was fastened to the beast, which, being driven, 0:18:58.040 --> 0:19:01.520 pulled out the pin and thus be came the executioner. 0:19:02.000 --> 0:19:04.560 In other cases, the bailiff for his servant cut the 0:19:04.640 --> 0:19:07.880 rope and allowed the axe to descend. It's a little 0:19:07.960 --> 0:19:12.600 unnecessary complexity involving fim animals, but otherwise the basic principles 0:19:12.600 --> 0:19:14.560 of the guillotine as we've come to know it. Yeah, 0:19:14.680 --> 0:19:16.760 it's more or less there there. There might be some 0:19:16.800 --> 0:19:20.479 design refinements we come on later, but this is the idea. 0:19:20.520 --> 0:19:23.879 It's it's a reliable consistent machine that's not going to 0:19:24.000 --> 0:19:26.520 mess up, right. And of course it doesn't sound like 0:19:26.560 --> 0:19:29.000 it was necessarily a custom blade, or maybe it was, 0:19:29.040 --> 0:19:30.840 but it's very much based on the design of an 0:19:30.920 --> 0:19:34.320 axe blade. Yeah, and when you see illustrations it looks 0:19:34.359 --> 0:19:36.760 like just a large axe head on the bottom of 0:19:36.760 --> 0:19:40.159 a huge wooden block. Uh So, this beheading machine of 0:19:40.160 --> 0:19:43.720 Halifax was famous enough that the English poet John Taylor 0:19:43.880 --> 0:19:48.880 referenced it alongside the notoriously tough police of Kingston upon 0:19:49.000 --> 0:19:51.480 Hull in a poem uh that that I thought was 0:19:51.480 --> 0:19:54.399 pretty good. He writes, there is a proverb and a 0:19:54.440 --> 0:19:58.120 prayer withal that we may not to Three strange places 0:19:58.160 --> 0:20:02.920 fall from Hull, from Halifax, from Hell. 'tis thus from 0:20:02.960 --> 0:20:07.159 all these three good Lord deliver us at Halifax. The 0:20:07.240 --> 0:20:10.400 law so sharp doth deal that whoso more than one 0:20:10.560 --> 0:20:14.520 threepence doth steal. They have a lynn that wondrous, quick 0:20:14.560 --> 0:20:17.880 and well. Since thieves all headless unto Heaven or Hell. 0:20:18.520 --> 0:20:21.880 From Hell, each man says, Lord, deliver me, because from 0:20:21.880 --> 0:20:25.640 Hell can no redemption be men may escape from Hull 0:20:25.720 --> 0:20:29.479 and Halifax, but sure in Hell there is a heavier tax. 0:20:30.119 --> 0:20:32.520 It sounds pretty grim, well, I like how it's sort 0:20:32.520 --> 0:20:35.720 of captures two themes there. One is that how the 0:20:35.760 --> 0:20:38.919 Halifax jibbit is deadly and something to be feared, but 0:20:39.000 --> 0:20:42.440 it also contrasts it with the supposed tortures of Hell. 0:20:42.560 --> 0:20:45.600 I guess you can emphasizing that, well, it's not as 0:20:45.680 --> 0:20:49.480 torturous as many of the other methods that are being used. Yeah, 0:20:49.480 --> 0:20:51.760 he's almost describing it like it's a like it's a 0:20:51.800 --> 0:20:56.960 plane ticket to too greater rewards are suffering depending on 0:20:57.560 --> 0:21:01.080 how one supernatural revenge fantasy is hang out here. But 0:21:01.200 --> 0:21:03.280 on the other hand, I like that it is to 0:21:03.520 --> 0:21:08.240 a certain extent farm animals, uh you know. Notwithstanding, it 0:21:08.359 --> 0:21:12.320 is to a certain extent saving the horrors of an 0:21:12.359 --> 0:21:16.960 afterlife for those imagined afterlife and not trying to um 0:21:17.119 --> 0:21:21.199 embody them too much in the act of execution itself. Yeah. Now, 0:21:21.240 --> 0:21:23.600 whether that's actually a good thing or not, we can 0:21:23.720 --> 0:21:26.280 discuss later, but it does seem to be there's at 0:21:26.320 --> 0:21:30.840 least there's at least a superficial kind of humaneness to write, 0:21:31.320 --> 0:21:33.320 even though it seems to be being lumped on people 0:21:33.359 --> 0:21:37.400 who commit extremely pack crimes and not and no matter 0:21:37.480 --> 0:21:41.680 what you think, really probably deserving of death. But there's 0:21:41.720 --> 0:21:45.680