A guillotine is an apparatus designed for efficiently carrying out executions by beheading. It consists of a tall, upright frame with a weighted and angled blade suspended at the top. The guillotine was developed as a way to execute people in a more humane way. Prior to the guillotine, France had inflicted manual beheading and a variety of methods of execution, many of which were more gruesome and required a high level of precision and skill to carry out successfully. The guillotine was named after French physician and Freemason Joseph-Ignace Guillotin, who proposed the use of a special device to carry out executions in France in a more humane manner. The first execution was carried out on a highwayman in 1792, and the machine became known as the guillotine. During the French Revolution, the guillotine became the primary symbol of the Reign of Terror and was used to execute thousands of people, including members of the bourgeoisie, aristocrats, peasants, foreigners, and sympathizers of the revolution. The guillotine remained an official method of execution up until 1981 in France, and the last person was guillotined in 1977.