13. The guillotine was still in use when Jimmy Carter was President, and Star Wars was in theaters
For centuries the execution of criminals and others condemned to death was performed by separating the head from the body, often in public, and the display of severed heads was a favored means of dissuading miscreant behavior. Execution by beheading could be messy however, as the skill of the executioner was often lacking, and more than one stroke of axe or sword was required to complete the execution. In 1788, German engineer Tobias Schmidt developed a machine to accomplish beheadings with mechanical precision and the following year Dr. Joseph-Ignace Guillotin successfully lobbied the French government to perform all executions using the device, which became known as the guillotine. Despite a long-standing myth, Guillotin did not invent the device, nor die on it. In fact, he opposed capital punishment.
Many thousands did die on the machine, which became a long-standing symbol of the French Revolution. The guillotine was widely used as an execution device in Europe for nearly two centuries, and was a favored method of the Gestapo, who often placed the condemned face up on the machine, so that the blade could be clearly seen before it dropped. It was the official means of execution of condemned criminals in France until capital punishment was abolished there in 1981. It was last used for that purpose on September 10, 1977, when Jimmy Carter was president of the United States, Star Wars was a huge box office hit, and the Atari Video Console System was the newest video game system. That the guillotine was in use in the late twentieth century is another indication that distant ancestors are often not as distant as believed.
Guillotine Fun Facts: The Death-Penalty Abolitionist Who Invented the Guillotine.