The Halifax Gibbet was an early guillotine -- FEC

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Date Posted: 06:08:01 07/10/12 Tue
Author: July 10: Silence Day; Independence Day in the Bahamas (1973)
Subject:

The Halifax Gibbet was an early guillotine

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The Halifax Gibbet was an early guillotine, or decapitating machine, used in the town of Halifax, West Yorkshire, England. It was probably installed some time during the 16th century as an alternative to beheading by axe or sword. Halifax was once part of the Manor of Wakefield, where ancient custom and law gave the Lord of the Manor the authority to execute summarily by decapitation any thief caught with stolen goods to the value of 13½ pence or more, or who confessed to having stolen goods of at least that value. The device consisted of an axe head fitted to the base of a heavy wooden block that ran in grooves between two 15-foot (4.6 m) tall uprights, mounted on a stone base about 4 feet (1.2 m) high. A rope attached to the block ran over a pulley, allowing it to be raised, after which the rope was secured by attaching it to a pin in the base. The block carrying the axe was then released either by withdrawing the pin or by cutting the rope once the victim was in place. The date of the gibbet's installation is uncertain, so it cannot be determined with any accuracy how many were executed using the Halifax Gibbet. By 1650 public opinion considered beheading to be an overly severe punishment for petty theft; use of the gibbet was forbidden by Oliver Cromwell, and the structure was dismantled. The stone base was rediscovered and preserved in about 1840, and a non-working replica was erected on the site in 1974. (more...)

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July 10: Silence Day; Independence Day in the Bahamas (1973)

1645 – English Civil War: The Parliamentarians destroyed the last Royalist field army at the Battle of Langport, ultimately giving Parliament control of the West of England.
1921 – One day after a truce between the Irish Republican Army and British forces, violence between Catholics and Protestants in Belfast resulted in sixteen dead.
1925 – Indian mystic and spiritual master Meher Baba began his silence until his death in 1969, only communicating by means of an alphabet board or by unique hand gestures.
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1973 – John Paul Getty III, grandson of American oil magnate J. Paul Getty, was kidnapped in Rome.
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