Jan 1, 2025
Another fun fact from my book: The namesake of the guillotine was Dr. Joseph-Ignace Guillotin, who was against capital punishment and did not invent the device. The ones who invented it were Antoine Louis and Tobias Schmidt. The reason it was named after Dr. Guillotin is that he argued that if capital punishment couldn't be banned like he wanted it to be, then criminals who were to be executed should have the same swift death whether or not they were rich or poor, and this the guillotine was invented and named after Dr. Guillotin. His descendants petitioned to change the name because they hated the association with their ancestor that much. The government refused, so they changed their family name.
