Guillotine
The design for a quick, painless, decapitation machine was given to Tobias Schmidt, a German engineer.  Schmidt built the first guillotine and tested it, on animals at first, but later on dead humans. It was made of two fourteen-foot uprights joined by a crossbar, whose inside edges were grooved and greased with tallow; the weighted blade was either straight, or curved like an axe. The system was started by a rope and pulley, while the whole construction was set up on a platform. The first execution was in 1792.