Explaining History on Instagram: "June 17, 1939 — Versailles, France. Crowds gathered to witness the final public execution by guillotine — the beheading of German criminal Eugen Weidmann. But what happened that day shocked the world. The spectators’ reaction — chaotic, cheering, and disturbing — forced the French government to immediately ban all public executions. This moment didn’t just mark the end of an era — it symbolized the nation’s shift from spectacle to reflection, from brutality to j

How France carried out its final guillotine execution