The French Revolution: The Shadow of the Guillotine (TRIH ep 505, part 3)
1792 · Resource
Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook examine the guillotine as the defining symbol of the French Revolution, tracing its origins in Enlightenment penal reform and popular spectacle. They place the machine in context: pre-revolutionary public punishments, the notorious execution of Robert-François Damiens (1757), and the Ancien Régime's theatrical penal culture.
On these timelines: The Rest Is History (podcast), Resources: Combined
Around 1792
- Haitian Revolution (1791)
- Latin American wars of independence (1808)
- Greek War of Independence (1821)
- Opium Wars (1839)
- French Revolution (1789)
- Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 (Choral) (1824)
- American Declaration of Independence (1776)
- Presidency of George Washington (1789)
- Industrial Revolution (1760)
- American Revolution (1765)