The beheading of Charlotte Corday

[Switchgear]

She was the Final Jeopardy question tonight. I'd never heard of her. From her wikipedia page

Marie-Anne Charlotte de Corday d'Armont (27 July 1768 – 17 July 1793), known to history as Charlotte Corday, was a figure of the French Revolution. In 1793, she was executed under the guillotine for the assassination of Jacobin leader Jean-Paul Marat, who was in part responsible, through his role as a politician and journalist, for the more radical course the Revolution had taken.

The crazy part:

Trial and execution

At her trial, Corday testified that she had carried out the assassination alone, saying "I killed one man to save 100,000." It was likely an allusion to Maximilien Robespierre's words before the execution of King Louis XVI. On 17 July 1793, four days after Marat was killed, Corday was executed under the guillotine and her corpse was disposed of in the Madeleine Cemetery.

After her decapitation, a man named Legros lifted her head from the basket and slapped it on the cheek. Charles-Henri Sanson, the executioner, indignantly rejected published reports that Legros was one of his assistants. However, Sanson stated in his diary that Legros was in fact a carpenter who had been hired to make repairs to the guillotine. Witnesses report an expression of "unequivocal indignation" on her face when her cheek was slapped. This slap was considered unacceptable and Legros was imprisoned for three months because of his outburst.

So it's ok to behead her, but slapping her face afterwards, that's totally unacceptable.

The "look of indignation" part just might give me nightmares tonight.

[Larry]

She was the Final Jeopardy question tonight. I'd never heard of her. From her wikipedia page

The crazy part:

So it's ok to behead her, but slapping her face afterwards, that's totally unacceptable.

The "look of indignation" part just might give me nightmares tonight.

Actually, the thought has occurred to me (while daydreaming in junior high, if you must know) that people executed by guillotine probably remained conscious for a while, afterwards. I'm certainly not a doctor, but I would think that as long s a minute might be believable.

[skinsfan07]

what I read on cracked.com today. Related to "decapitation and the human brain"

http://www.cracked.com/article_16721_6-more-creepy-urban-legends-that-happen-to-be-true_p2.html

Read #1 and try sleeping at night.

[Bang]

Yea, I read before tha if the cut was fast and sharp enough, the head could live up to fifteen seconds or so.. they'd snatch up particularly heinous offenders from the basket and show them their own headless bodies.

~Bang

[Chants]

I'm no medical doctor, but it seems to me that such a massive, sudden, and nearly complete loss of blood to the brain would cause unconsciousness almost immediately.

[PokerPacker]

I'm no medical doctor, but it seems to me that such a massive, sudden, and nearly complete loss of blood to the brain would cause unconsciousness almost immediately.

takes time (not much) to work the blood/oxygen out of the brain

[Teller]

An old sergeant of mine once SAW an accident take place, where a drunk fell down in the street, and was run over at the waist (and subsequently split in half) by a tractor trailer. He rushed to the man's aid (really, WTF can you do?) and said the guy looked him in the eyes for a good 8-10 seconds repeating "OW! OW! OW! OW! OW!" over and over again, before his eyes glazed over.

Sleep well!