Chemistry's Father Dies: Lavoisier Executed by Guillotine
Antoine Lavoisier was guillotined on May 8, 1794, at the Place de la Revolution in Paris along with 27 other former tax collectors of the Ferme Generale. The judge reportedly told Lavoisier "The Republic has no need of geniuses." Joseph-Louis Lagrange said the next day: "It took them only an instant to cut off that head, and a hundred years may not produce another like it." Lavoisier had revolutionized chemistry by identifying oxygen, disproving the phlogiston theory, and establishing the principle of conservation of mass. He had also proposed educational reforms, pushed for humane prison conditions, and attempted to reform the French tax system. His widow later married Count Rumford, another scientist, and spent decades preserving and publishing Lavoisier's unpublished work.
May 8, 1794
232 years ago
Key Figures & Places
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