By: History.com Editors

1977

The guillotine falls silent

History.com Editors

Published: March 03, 2010

Last Updated: January 24, 2025

On September 10, 1977, at Baumetes Prison in Marseille, France, Hamida Djandoubi, a Tunisian immigrant convicted of murder, becomes the last person executed by guillotine.

The Guillotine

See why this device was a preferred form of legal execution.

The guillotine first gained fame during the French Revolution when physician and revolutionary Joseph-Ignace Guillotin won passage of a law requiring all death sentences to be carried out by “means of a machine.” Decapitating machines had been used earlier in Ireland and England, and Guillotin and his supporters viewed these devices as more humane than other execution techniques, such as hanging or firing squad. A French decapitating machine was built and tested on cadavers, and on April 25, 1792, a highwayman became the first person in Revolutionary France to be executed by this method.

The device soon became known as the “guillotine” after its advocate, and more than 10,000 people lost their heads by guillotine during the Revolution, including Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, the former king and queen of France.

Use of the guillotine continued in France in the 19th and 20th centuries, and the last execution by guillotine occurred in 1977. In September 1981, France outlawed capital punishment altogether, thus abandoning the guillotine forever. There is a museum dedicated to the guillotine in Liden, Sweden.

Timeline

Also on This Day in History

Discover more of the major events, famous births, notable deaths and everything else history-making that happened on September 10th

1608

John Smith elected to lead Jamestown

English adventurer John Smith is elected council president of Jamestown, Virginia—the first permanent English settlement in North America. Smith, a colorful figure, had won popularity in the colony because of his organizational abilities and effectiveness in dealing with local Native American groups. In May 1607, about 100 English colonists settled along the James River in […]

1813

The Battle of Lake Erie

In the first unqualified defeat of a British naval squadron in history, U.S. Captain Oliver Hazard Perry leads a fleet of nine American ships to victory over a squadron of six British warships at the Battle of Lake Erie during the War of 1812. The battle was closely contested for hours, and Perry’s flagship Lawrence […]

1846

The struggling Donner Party sends ahead to California for food

Weeks behind schedule and the massive Sierra Nevada mountains still to be crossed, on what was likely September 10, 1846, the members of the ill-fated Donner Party realize they are running short of supplies and send two men ahead to California to bring back food. The group of 89 emigrants had begun their western trek […]

1897

First drunk driving arrest

A 25-year-old London taxi driver named George Smith becomes the first person ever arrested for drunk driving after slamming his cab into a building.

Drunk driving accident, 1951

1919

New York City parade honors World War I veterans

On September 10, 1919, almost one year after an armistice officially ended the First World War, New York City holds a parade to welcome home General John J. Pershing, commander in chief of the American Expeditionary Force (AEF), and some 25,000 soldiers who had served in the AEF’s 1st Division on the Western Front. The […]

1921

Silent film star Fatty Arbuckle arrested for murder

On September 10, 1921, Fatty Arbuckle, a silent-film era performer at the height of his fame, is arrested in San Francisco for the rape and murder of aspiring actress Virginia Rappe. Arbuckle was later acquitted by a jury, but the scandal essentially put an end to his career. Roscoe Conkling Arbuckle was born on March […]

1940

British War Cabinet reacts to the Blitz in kind

In light of the destruction and terror inflicted on Londoners by a succession of German bombing raids, called “the Blitz,” the British War Cabinet seeks retaliation, instructing British bombers over Germany to drop their bombs “anywhere” if unable to reach their targets. The prior two nights of bombing had wrought extraordinary damage, especially in the […]

1960

Hurricane Donna batters the Florida Keys

On September 10, 1960, Hurricane Donna hits the Florida Keys as a Category 4 storm. Having formed near Cape Verde off the African coast, it would go on to cause 150 deaths from Puerto Rico to New England over the course of two weeks. Donna first attained hurricane status on August 31 and headed west […]

1981

Picasso’s “Guernica” is returned to Spain

Spanish artist Pablo Picasso’s monumental anti-war mural Guernica is received by Spain after four decades of refugee existence on September 10, 1981. One of Picasso’s most important works, the painting was inspired by the destruction of the Basque town of Guernica by the Nazi air force during the Spanish Civil War. In 1939, Picasso gave the […]

1991

Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” is released as a single

On September 10, 1991, Seattle rock band Nirvana releases its breakout single, “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” In just a few short months, a group that was a complete nonentity to the mainstream music-buying public would become one of the most important rock bands on earth. You either had to be part of a fairly small […]

2008

CERN Large Hadron Collider is powered up

On September 10, 2008, scientists successfully flip the switch for the first time on the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) lab in Geneva, kicking off what many called history’s biggest science experiment. Testing particle physics theories, the $8 billion LHC is the largest particle accelerator in the world, […]

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Citation Information

Article title
The guillotine falls silent
Website Name
History
Date Accessed
March 28, 2025
Publisher
A&E Television Networks
Last Updated
January 24, 2025
Original Published Date
March 03, 2010

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