When was the guillotine invented?

Answer 1

Guillotine-like devices have been around since antiquity. The modern French guillotine was designed by Doctor Antoine Louis and Tobias Schmidt in 1791. Joseph Ignace Guillotin did not invent nor design the machine, he only introduced a uniform death penalty law proposal, to be executed by mechanical decapitation.

See http://boisdejustice.com/History/History.html

Answer 2

The guillotine became notorious (and acquired its name) in France at the time of the French Revolution; however, guillotine-like devices, such as the Halifax Gibbet and Scottish Maiden, existed and were used for executions in several European countries long before the French Revolution, the earliest reference to the Halifax Gibbet dating back to 1286. The first execution-by-guillotine was performed on highwayman Nicolas Jacques Pelletier on April 25, 1792. The guillotine was then the only legal execution method in France until the abolition of the death penalty in 1981

Answer 3

What we know as the guillotine was invented just before the French revolution, but something similar was in use in the north of England in the seventeenth century.

Answer 4

It was invented by a doctor whose last name was Guillotine as a "humane" way to execute people

Answer 5

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guillotine

Answer 6

Or see this site: http://www.historywiz.com/guillotine.htm