Estimates of the number of lives taken by the guillotine during the French Revolution range from 17,000 to 40,000 citizens. It is thought that three-quarters of the executed were innocent. In its glory days, the guillotine took 3,000 lives in one month.
Oral History: Defined. Oral history is a field of study and a method of gathering, preserving and interpreting the voices and memories of people, communities, and participants in past events. Oral history is both the oldest type of historical inquiry, predating the written word, and one of the most modern, initiated with tape recorders in the 1940s and now using 21st-century digital technologies.
Oral Testimony Law and Legal Definition. Oral testimony is the oldest kind of evidence. The oral testimony of witnesses can exclude or supplement documentary evidence. Under the U.S. law almost anyone can be a witness. The parties to the case, experts, even children, and convicted felons can testify.