7 Responses

1. Tyler Lynch says:

   16 October 2012 at 3:57 pm

   Marie Antoinette was not a very popular queen even before she was charged with treason. A lot of people of the upper class were upset that she was not able to bear a child until eight years into her marriage with Louis XVI. On top of that she was accused of ignoring her duties at court to spend her time playing with her children. By 1783 there were pamphlets being spread around calling the Queen immoral, ignorant, extravagant, and adulterous. She went on to spend large sums of money on furniture, clothing, and hair styles. For her insane spending she quickly gained the nickname “Madame Deficit.” It is easy to say that the people of France could not have been happier than when she was laid on the guillotine.

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2. Steven Cook says:

   15 November 2012 at 1:21 am

   Ironically, the Guillotine was designed to be a humane device. Doctor Joseph-Ignace Guillotin proposed that the Guillotine was a much more “civilized” way to behead individuals. For example, it would sometimes take an ax man multiply strikes to behead a criminal, causing excruciating pain and a mess. However, despite the good intentions behind the Guillotine, it was the most scared device during the Reign of Terror. The Reign of Terror was a period in France from June 1793 to July 1974. This period had great political change and executions on a daily basis. All in all, Marie Antoinette was only one out of 16,594 people executed during this time period.

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   • Garrett Domke says:

     26 November 2012 at 5:24 pm

     The guillotine is a device designed for carrying out executions by decapitation. It consists of a tall upright frame in which a weighted and angled blade is raised to the top and suspended. The condemned person is secured at the bottom of the frame, with his or her neck held directly below the blade. The blade is then released, to fall swiftly and sever the head from the body. The device is best known for its use in France, in particular during the French Revolution during a period called the Reign Of Terror. On 10 October 1789, Doctor Joseph-Ignace Guillotin, a French physician, stood before the National Assembly and proposed six articles in favor of the reformation of capital punishment including the newly formed use of the Guillotine for all beheading’s; he was later executed by this same way. It is also said that after being beheaded the human head can stay alive for nearly 2 minutes with the brain still sending signals to the face, nose, and ears. In Nazi Germany during Hitlers time of ruling he was fascinated with this idea of a human head being alive after being removed from the body so he was reported having done multiple experiments with severed heads to test this hypothesis including one where a severed head was slapped on one cheek and a short time after turned beet red. No one will ever know for sure if these experiments worked but these ideas will live in history for ever.

     -Garrett Domke

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3. James Beni Wilson says:

   25 November 2012 at 5:31 pm

   Decapitation within terms of headhunting which is also found in South East Asia such as the Philippines. In Austronesian beliefs, the head is believed to be where the spirit or soul is located. An austronesian word anito translates into “resident of the head” where Ani means ‘soul’ and to means ‘of the head’ from the Malaysian language. Within certain indigenous groups in the Philippines, like the Andes Warriors, the taking of the head is a metaphysical belief of transferring the power from the souls of the killed into the warriors.

   This same ritual was also found in the Philippines as well as means of bringing fertility to their harvest.

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4. Mikhala Ruonavaara says:

   3 December 2012 at 12:22 am

   In the Ancient Chinese civilization, punishments were severe. Crimes were not taken lightly and those convicted would remember their punishment(s) forever. Examples were made of the people who were punished. There were three groups of punishments for different groups of people. Those being: the five punishments for women, the five punishments for serfs (enslaved laborers), and the five punishments for slaves. The five punishments for women included having to crush grain, having their fingers crushed slowly, being beaten with a wooden plank, allowing one to commit suicide, and solitary confinement. For the serfs, the punishments were caning, caning with a larger object, slavery, exile, and death. The slaves were subject to more extreme punishments including being branded or tattooed on the face, cutting off of the nose, amputation of one or both feet, castration and death.

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5. Kristen Becker says:

   7 December 2012 at 7:03 pm

   – Beheading goes all the way back to ancient times when warriors would take the heads off of the enemies they had killed and take them to their kings or leader to show how many people they have slain. It is even said that the bible mentions that David had taken the head of Goliath and carried it to Saul to prove of his victory. Most be-headings or decapitation as it is also known, where done by the use of an axe, sword, knife, wire and eventually the guillotine would be invented for that purpose as well and is how Marie Antoinette was beheaded.

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6. Alex Kim says:

   9 December 2012 at 9:12 pm

   Beheadings appear way to often in history. The bible mentions beheadings numerous times. In David and the Goliath, David cuts the Goliaths head off to show everyone the giant was dead. Decapitation was a popular method of punishment back then. Beheading was a more humane way of execution throughout the ancient world, but not in China. The people of China saw decapitation as a severe form of punishment. But just east of China laid Japan, where beheadings were done even in minor offensives. The Japanese Samurai would behead one of their own if they had brought shame or acted cowardly.

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