7. Charlotte Corday
Charlotte Corday grew up in an abbey at Caen, France, where she had access to volumes by writers such as Plutarch, Rousseau, and Voltaire at the library. When the revolution began to radicalize as the Reign of Terror took hold, she found herself sympathetic to the Girondin movement, which was held in contempt by Robespierre for its moderate approach to how the revolution should proceed. Robespierre wanted the bloodbath at the guillotine to intensify, but the Girondins wanted a more representative, republican government to lead France.
Robespierre belonged to the radical Jacobin action, and one of its most prominent leaders was a journalist named Jean-Paul Marat. He was believed to have a role in the September Massacres, and Corday thought that his ideas, which were being published in a national newspaper, were leading the country towards a civil war that would ruin France. She traveled to Paris, where Marat lived and bought a 6-inch knife which she used to stab him while he was taking a bath.
Corday was arrested and put on trial for assassinating a friend of the people. She was found guilty of killing Marat and executed at the guillotine. Shortly before her death, she requested that a portrait of her be made so that she might be remembered as she actually was.