All language subtitles for Dark.Marvels.S01E01.1080p.WEB.h264-EDITH

Tonight, the most notorious
methods of execution...

Bones breaking, skin
ripping, blood flowing...

and the diabolical devices
used to carry them out.

It's gonna slice through
whatever's in its path.

From a seemingly
ordinary wheel...

The execution would weave them
around the spokes of the wheel.

To an infamous chair...

Blood vessels are
bursting in his face.

It looks like he's
sweating blood.

We'll reveal the
surprising origins

of these lethal objects.

The darkest marvel of
all is the human mind.

People get an idea of a
way to be cruel to one another

and then they build it.

Not all inventions are
made with good intentions.

Unlock the twisted history

behind the world's
darkest marvels.

Throughout history,
the death sentence,

that most final of punishments,

takes many forms.

And one of the most infamous

begins with an accident.

Buffalo, New York, 1881.

A drunken worker
named Lemuel Smith

touches a live circuit
in an electrical plant.

He got a very heavy jolt

of electricity all the
way through him,

and he fell over dead.

In the 1880s, the
electrical industry

is very much in its infancy.

Ordinary people saw
electricity as something magical,

maybe even divine.

You've got Mary
Shelley's "Frankenstein",

where the monster
of Frankenstein

is brought to life by a spark.

At the time, there were
experiments that doctors would do

where they would administer
electric current to corpses,

causing the corpse to twitch.

So there was this
incorrect assumption

that electricity had something
to do with powering life.

So news of Smith's
death travels very quickly.

This creates a sense
of apprehension.

People start to realize

that electricity
is a really lethal

and potentially
life-ending force.

And that sparks a thought

for local dentist
Alfred Southwick.

Alfred Southwick is
living in Buffalo at the time

Lemuel Smith dies.

Seeing the news
of Smith's death,

which by all accounts
was instantaneous,

was probably painless,

gives Southwick some ideas.

Maybe electricity can be used

to put people to death
humanely in the United States.

At the time, the dominant
mode of execution

in the United
States was hanging.

There were a lot of people who
were concerned about hanging.

Bungled hangings had
been turning people off

of capital punishment
as a practice.

Part of the problems
with hanging

were a lot of the time
the neck did not break,

and as a result, the
person asphyxiates to death.

Sometimes people are left
dangling for 20, 30 minutes.

Hangings took too long,

and they caused
incalculable distress

to the people that were hanged,

but also to the people
that had to do the hanging

and the people that
had to watch the hanging.

Among the most publicized

of these botched executions

was the hanging of a
woman in New York.

In 1887, Roxalana Druse

was put to death for the crime

of murdering her
abusive husband.

And because of her petite size,

Roxalana doesn't die quickly.

And this is one of the
many cases of this period

that galvanizes public
sentiment against hanging.

The state creates a commission

to look for alternatives.

On that commission is
one Alfred Southwick,

who suggests electrocution.

They just need the right device.

There were a bunch of different
options that they were considering.

One of them was to
put the condemned

in a telephone
booth type structure.

Another option was to put
the condemned on a table

and strap them down to the table

and electrocute them
in a prone position.

Now remember,
Southwick is a dentist,

so Southwick proposes
the dental chair.

Now in many people's minds,

the dental chair is
an instrument of pain,

but in Southwick's mind

the chair would give
just enough dignity

so that it didn't look like the person
was a specimen being operated on.

But it also wouldn't create
the collapse of the body

and the dramatic
sort of evidence

of the violence of the state

that a standing
execution would create.

But the chairman of the
commission isn't convinced.

Elbridge Gerry had been an
advocate of using a poison,

probably morphine, as a
means of capital punishment.

One of the objections to executing
somebody with a dose of morphine

was that it would be too easy,

that it would be too peaceful,

that it wouldn't
be scary enough.

There was still the idea that executions
should serve a deterrent effect.

You didn't just want to
just put somebody to sleep.

You wanted to make it fearsome.

No one kills other
people with electricity.

The state would
be the only entity

that was using electricity
to inflict on death on folks,

and its violence would have that
kind of godlike, awe-inspiring authority.

But Gerry isn't persuaded
by these kinds of arguments,

so Southwick decides he's
gonna contact Thomas Edison.

Now Edison was
against the death penalty.

He saw it as a barbaric activity

that humans shouldn't do.

Southwick wrote to
Thomas Edison and said,

"Your personal opinions about
the death penalty don't really pertain.

While it is the law of the land,
don't we have a responsibility

to make it as
humane as possible?"

And that sways Edison.
Edison writes back and says,

"I would be pleased to speak with
your commission about electricity."

Now Edison genuinely cared

about reducing pain
and suffering in the world,

but he also had his
own financial interests.

Edison had started to really
feel the squeeze of competition

from a man named
George Westinghouse.

George Westinghouse is
a Pennsylvania engineer

who in the mid-1880s

is promoting a different
form of electricity

than Edison's direct current.

It's called alternating current,

and Westinghouse's success

makes the two men bitter rivals.

Alternating current is superior

to Edison's direct current
in a number of ways,

so to Edison, alternating current is
nothing short of an existential threat.

His whole company is
invested in direct current.

Edison is convinced that direct
current is safer than alternating current

because the voltage
is so much lower.

Sure, it can hurt you,

but he says it's
not gonna kill you.

Spotting the perfect opportunity
to undermine his enemy,

Edison agrees to help create
the electric chair on one condition.

He said the best
tool for the job

would be alternating
current generators,

and he even specified,

manufactured by George
Westinghouse of Pittsburgh.

What better way to demonstrate

how unsafe
alternating current is

than to have that be the
current that's used by the state

in its execution of
condemned criminals.

In June 1888,

the state of New York
approves execution

by electric chair
as the primary form

of capital punishment.

But the state of New
York has still not settled on

what the current for
the electric chair will be.

Edison released an illustration

of the first design he proposed,

and on that generator
he made a point

of putting the
Westinghouse label on it.

Edison starts a rather
gruesome series of tests.

He convenes a who's who

in the world of electricity
at these demonstrations,

and what happens
is by all accounts

a really horrifying scene.

There were many
dogs, several horses,

a bunch of calves, all with
the goal of establishing AC

as the preferred
current of death

and establishing the correct
amount of current required.

Well, nobody thinks
this is a good experiment.

The people are
looking on in horror.

They're watching these animals
be tortured in front of them.

Despite the negative reactions,

Edison hopes
he's made his point.

And the Edison Company,
they're talking about with delight

the idea maybe people would
start referring to executions

by electricity as being
"Westinghoused."

But as the first live
human to experience it

is about to find out,
the early electric chair

is far from perfect.

In early 1889, after a gruesome

demonstration
electrocuting animals,

Edison's campaign to
make alternating current

power the electric
chair pays off.

The experiments at
the Edison laboratory

convince New York State
that alternating current

is what should be used in
killing condemned prisoners.

So Governor David
Hill signs into law a bill

that funds the construction
of three electric chairs

for the state's three prisons...

Clinton, Sing Sing, and Auburn.

The first electric chair
has a sturdy oak frame,

leather straps to
bind the person

at the chest, arms,
waist, and legs,

and two metal electrodes
placed at the head and back.

When the switch is flipped,
a thousand volts of current

will surge through the victim,

supposedly killing
them instantly.

William Kemmler is the unfortunate
first person to be sentenced to death

under the state's
Electrical Execution Act.

William Kemmler has been convicted
of murdering his common law wife.

One day, after a long bender,

Kemmler came home
and accused his wife Tillie

of stealing from him
and cheating on him.

They begin to fight,

and in the heat of the moment,

he suddenly just stops fighting

and calmly leaves...

finds a hatchet...

comes back...

and murders her.

On August 6th, 1890,

Kemmler is escorted
to the electric chair

at New York's Auburn Prison.

He is strapped in. A mask
covers everything but his mouth.

He is, by some accounts,

the calmest person in the room.

Everything's secured
and attached to his body

to send these volts
jolting through him.

He's been assured that this is going
to be a rather humane experience.

The doctors standing
next to the chair,

they have a plan to put
1,000 volts into Kemmler.

The appointed time
happens. The knock happens.

The dynamo runs.

Among his final words are,

"Take it easy,
and do it properly.

I'm in no hurry."

They turned the current on.

It flowed for 17 seconds.

Multiple different things occur

when the body is electrocuted.

You can have sparks
flying out of somebody.

Your eyes could
actually pop out.

You're gonna have
a significant amount

of muscle contraction,

and if they're
fighting against it,

the amount of muscle contraction

could also cause bones to break.

But at the end of the day,
if you have enough energy

and it gets to your
heart, it's gonna stop,

and you're gonna die.

Everyone immediately
starts to celebrate

because it looks
like Kemmler is dead.

Men approach what they
think is Kemmler's corpse...

Initially they think,
"All right, that's done."

One person reaches
out to touch it.

Then he starts
gasping for breath.

Kemmler is not dead,

and they realize that they
have not completed their task.

Everyone in the
room is appalled.

You have a lot of witnesses.

They recharge the chair

for another attempt,

this time doubling the voltage.

They amp up the
voltage to 2,000 volts

and this creates a
gruesome spectacle.

He's convulsing, foam is
coming out of his mouth,

bits of Kemmler's jacket began
to smolder and catch on fire.

It looks like he's sweating blood as
blood vessels are bursting in his face.

Smoke was rising from
his head by some accounts.

An ungodly smell was
filling the execution chamber.

You have grown men
fleeing from the room

feeling that they're
about to vomit.

By the time they flip it off,

he looks absolutely grotesque.

This has been anything
but a humane execution.

What happened in Auburn
that day was a nightmare.

Reformers had wanted this
quick and painless execution.

What they got was
this eight minutes of hell.

The main problem with
Kemmler's botched execution

was the placement
of the electrodes.

Instead of at the head
and the middle the back,

it should've been placed
at his head and his feet.

That path would've ensured
that most of the current

would've passed near
or through his heart,

which would've killed
him much quicker

than what the botched
execution actually did.

They cooked him rather
than electrocuted him.

So in the aftermath of
Kemmler's horrific execution,

Westinghouse goes on
the record by saying simply,

"They would've done
better by using an axe."

The botched execution

prompts engineers
to redesign the chair.

Later incarnations
of the electric chair

improved upon that first design

by changing the electrodes
from metal to brass,

a copper mesh was
introduced to the top of the scalp,

and it ensured
that the current path

would actually pass
through the heart,

killing the person quickly.

These upgrades eventually reduce

the chair's failure
rate to less than 2%.

As of 2023, the electric chair

is an approved method
of execution in eight states.

There are 4,374 people

who have died by the electric
chair in the United States.

And when you think about this,

this device that probably
wouldn't have existed

if Thomas Edison
hadn't wanted to damage

the business interests
of one of his rivals,

that that device could end
up killing so many Americans,

it's astonishing
and it's horrendous.

Ironically, Edison
suffers his own loss

when his direct current
loses out to his rival.

In the end, alternating
current won the war of currents

because the electricity
that we use every day

is in the form of
alternating current.

Alternating current
offered such an advantage

in terms of carrying electricity
cheaply to more people

that it just left direct
current in the dust.

The electric chair
is a stark reminder

that modern technology can be
twisted to serve unintended ends.

The wheel is often called

the most important
invention in human history,

but for centuries this
seemingly simple object

delivered more than transport.

It also delivered
excruciating death.

The darkest marvel of
all is the human mind.

And what we see over time

is that people get
an idea of a way

to be cruel to one another,

and then they build it,
and then they implement it.

So if we start with a wheel,

all right, a wheel
is a wonderful thing.

And then somebody
had this bright idea,

oh, how to make
this wheel more lethal.

The wheel, of course,
was never intended

for men to be splayed on it,
have all their bones broken.

But for 2,000 years,

it was used as a means
of punishment and death.

Known as the breaking wheel,

the exact origin of this
execution device is unclear,

though some
historians trace it back

to a notoriously
cruel Roman ruler.

Commodus is a second
century Roman emperor

who's known to have
a particular bloodlust.

Commodus famously killed

80 lions all by
himself with 80 spears

just to show off how powerful
and masculine he was.

So if indeed the wheel
was invented by him

for uses of punishment,

it would be fitting

for what we know of him.

Commodus uses the wheel

because he likes
the entertainment,

if you will, out of the death.

He was a up guy.

In early versions,

the wheel is outfitted
with iron spikes

that roll across
the victim's body.

Later, a gruesome
variation emerges

that makes very clear why
it's called the breaking wheel.

After tying a
victim to the wheel,

executioners use a
hammer to break their bones.

There were essentially two ways

of going about killing somebody

on the breaking wheel like this.

One was to do it
from the bottom up,

which is to say to
start at the extremities

at the bottom of the body and start
breaking the bones going upwards.

That's not the way you wanted
this to happen if you were the victim.

You wanted to go
from the top down,

which means that the initial
blows were done to the head,

to the top part of the body,
which is going to kill you faster

so you suffer less.

So it was usually
an act of mercy

for somebody to get it top down.

At that point, the executioner
would simply take the limbs

and weave them around
the spokes of the wheel.

If you've ever
broken a single bone,

you know how
painful that can be.

This would be having
all four of your limbs

shattered so completely

that they could
then be manipulated

and tied around a spoke of wood.

That is extraordinary pain.

For the truly unfortunate,

the wheel does not kill quickly.

The point of the breaking
wheel, especially in public,

was to have the largest
amount of visible suffering,

and the bones
breaking, the skin ripping,

the blood flowing,

and the screams
from the individual,

who would not die.

That is what the
executioner wanted.

In one case, we have a report

that somebody
lives for four days

woven onto the
wheel in horrific agony,

but they're kept
alive for that long

in what must've been to the
executioner and those involved

a real horrible
high-five moment,

but absolutely
incredible, awful pain

for the person involved.

Ultimately what's going to
kill you on the breaking wheel

is not the pain and the
agony of the injuries,

it's the decreased amount
of blood in your body,

and it doesn't sustain life

because you don't have
any oxygen to your tissue.

Once the victims do succumb,

their mangled corpses
are left on display.

This kind of
execution is public.

You're wanting people
to see this, to hear it,

to be horrified by it,

because people are often
fascinated about death.

There's also an
element of social control

whereby displaying a
broken body on the wheel,

everyone who's
looking on is reminded

that you, the powers that be,

have the power to
do that to them, too.

Twisted tales of
the breaking wheel

reverberate throughout history.

But the most famous story

may be the legend
of Saint Catherine,

a Christian tortured by
Roman Emperor Maxentius

in the fourth century AD.

Emperor Maxentius was
persecuting Christians

because he wants to unify

the whole Roman
empire in his worship.

Catherine was a young
woman, only 14 years old,

and she had already
heard about Christianity

and persuaded many
others to follow Christ.

And so the emperor
had her arrested.

And first they tortured
her down in the dungeons.

The beat her and starved her.

Then he finally decided to
bring out the worst torture of all,

the breaking wheel.

She was raised on the wheel.

They were ready
to break her bones,

and the wheel fell down.

When she touched the
wheel and it broke to pieces,

finally they gave up in
despair and cut off her head.

Real or not,

because of this story,
the breaking wheel

has been associated
with Catherine so fully

it's called Catherine's
Wheel across time.

It remains one of the
more popular forms

of public execution in
Europe for centuries,

until the late 1700s when
the citizens of France

start to question
the barbaric practice.

In 1788, seven years
after Marquis de Lafayette

plays a pivotal role in
the American revolution,

his countrymen are still
being broken on the wheel.

The last person to be sentenced to
death in France by a breaking wheel

was a convicted
murder Jean Louschart.

People were so angry that
a whole mob rushed forward

and basically rescued
Louschart from this device.

He is pulled off and taken
away by the crowd to freedom.

King Louis XVI actually ended up

banning the use of the
breaking wheel in 1791.

And so a new form
of execution is needed,

one that's more humane.

And among the next
death machine inventors,

a French doctor whose name is
forever tied to the Reign of Terror.

France, 1789.

Fueled by immense gaps
between the rich and the poor,

a social revolution
is starting to boil.

Since the time
of King Louis XIV,

we are seeing a lot of excessive
spending coming from the crown,

such as the building of
the Palace of Versailles,

which practically bankrupted
France in the early 1700s.

We are also seeing a long time
period of famine due to weather crises.

Harvests aren't going very well,

and France goes
into a lot of debt

because of various
wars against England.

So we're seeing a lot of
people who are hungry,

they're exhausted,
they're angry,

and this is going to kick off

what becomes known
as the French Revolution.

One of the other causes
of the French Revolution

was the American Revolution.

The American Revolution
spread the mystique of revolution.

It showed an example
of a successful revolution,

and that served as a powerful
role model for the French.

The French Revolution

officially begins in
late spring of 1789

with the formation of
the National Assembly,

a governing body of the people

meant to represent all classes.

With revolutionaries
now in control in France,

they start looking at things
that would change society,

and one of them even was
how to put people to death.

The major problems
of inequality in France

even extended into death.

The different classes
got different treatments

in terms of execution.

If a member of the upper class

was going to be executed,

they would get the most
humane way... being beheaded.

Those of the lower
classes though

were given really
harsh punishments.

These included
things like hanging.

These included
things like drowning,

burning at the stake,

or being put onto
the breaking wheel.

On October 10th, 1789,

a prominent French
physician steps forward

with an innovative idea...

Using an efficient sharp blade

to kill everyone
sentenced to death,

regardless of class.

That doctor's name,
Joseph Guillotin.

Guillotin hated public
executions of any kind.

But he knew there was no chance
in eliminating the death penalty,

so what he advocated was
at least making the execution

more humane if possible.

The practice of beheading
was far from perfect

because it didn't guarantee

a quick or painless
or clean death.

Sometimes the axe might be dull,

and it would require
multiple attempts

to actually sever the
head from the neck.

The executioners would often
show up drunk and miss their mark,

or they wouldn't swing hard
enough and it would be very messy.

So what Guillotin was proposing

is we have to create some
sort of mechanical device

that will make it so
any sort of beheading

will automatically be very clean
and painless and immediate.

The National Assembly agrees
and commissions a prototype.

The project is overseen by the
king's physician Antoine Louis,

who looks at other beheading
machines around Europe for inspiration.

The Halifax Gibbet is essentially
a frame of about 14 feet high,

and there's an axe blade that's
attached to a wooden piece

that then drops with
a rope and a pulley.

The Scottish Maiden
is more sophisticated.

It works on an arm lever,
and you have the blade drop.

It's a sharper blade.

It is more effective,

and because it's
in use until 1710,

it is an immediate
inspiration for the guillotine.

Though it was initially
called the Louisette

after Anton Louis,

the death device is soon renamed

after the man whose
idea triggered it.

The first guillotine is
a tall wooden frame

with a heavy blade
suspended at the top by a rope.

When the rope is
released, the blade falls

severing the head in
one swift, fluid motion.

Legend has it, King Louis
XVI also gave an idea

of how to make the guillotine
even more effective...

Make the blade slanted

so it could go in with a
sharper and even cleaner cut.

You have essentially
an 88-pound weight

that's hoisted 14
feet above the ground.

And released from rest,

it's gonna accelerate
very quickly.

And at the end, it's
moving 15 miles an hour.

It's gonna slice through
whatever's in its path.

In this case, it's
the human neck.

In 1792, they
start testing it out.

So first they release it
down onto bales of hay

to see how it
would slice through.

Once they perfected this,

they went through and they
began beheading animals.

Once they realized
it worked for that,

they began testing it on corpses

to make sure it would
also work on human beings.

And they tested it very quickly,

and they ironed out
the kinks very fast.

Within just one week,
the guillotine was ready

for use on live humans.

It's April 25th, 1792,

and a notorious
instrument of death

is about to make
its bloody debut.

The first person to
face the guillotine

is convicted robber and murderer

Nicolas Jacques Pelletier.

The guillotine was
set up publically

in the square in
front of the town hall.

This was a big gravel pit

where all kinds of executions,

even some market
activity were happening.

So people are kind of always
coming through this area.

It was really central in Paris.

This was such an event

that thousands upon
thousands of people

showed up because they
had heard about this guillotine.

They'd heard about
this new method,

and they wanted to
see it put into action.

The crowd watches intently

as Pelletier is escorted
to the guillotine.

He is secured into the stocks.

The blade is released,

and he is instantly decapitated.

It just happened so fast, many
people didn't even see it happen.

And the crowd is not satisfied

because they're used to
the spectacle of torture.

They start getting
upset. It hasn't taken long.

They wanted a more
lengthy execution.

They started to say,
"Bring back the gallows.

Bring back the gallows," so that
they can see men writhing in pain

for a little bit before they
finally go to their maker.

The whole point
of this invention

was to level the playing field

and create a painless
and humane way of death

for all classes.

And instead of
people being happy,

people were actually furious

because they felt
they were missing out

on a grand public
piece of entertainment.

But as more citizens
are sent to the guillotine,

the public's attitude
starts to shift.

What people came to realize
was that the guillotine itself

offered a different
type of spectacle.

People could now watch
many executions in a row

because it made
the process so fast.

The crowds go for an afternoon.

10, 12 people would be executed.

Some say it had a
carnival-esque quality to it.

There would be hawkers
or vendors in the crowd

selling food and
drink and souvenirs,

maybe even little models
of the guillotine itself.

People gawking at the
murder of a fellow human being.

We're seeing so many executions

that the process kind
of restores that raucous

and social tradition
of public execution.

As public executions
continue to draw crowds,

those in the front row begin
to notice something peculiar.

Because the
guillotine was so sharp,

there are reports
of a severed head

being so quickly severed

that the eyes and
mouth of the head

would open and close.

And the implication is that

because it was
so swift, so clean,

the neural impulses,
the electrical impulses

were still going to the brain.

Soon the efficient
new killing machine

becomes a symbol of
the French Revolution,

an era that's so deadly

it's referred to as
the Reign of Terror.

So many people in
Paris got executed a day

that by halfway through the day

the blade would've gotten dull.

And what happened
is that people had to

start releasing the
blade multiple times

just to behead somebody,

and so this humane
method of execution

became an absolute horror.

Initially the
guillotine's victims

were nobles, they
were the bourgeoisie.

Pretty soon though it's pretty
much anybody who doesn't agree

with those in power will
be sent to the guillotine.

We get musicians, we get
painters, we get teachers.

Anybody who might be viewed
as an enemy of the revolution

could be guillotined.

Nobody was safe during
the Reign of Terror. Nobody.

Eventually, even King Louis XIV

is convicted of
treason and conspiracy

and condemned to die.

The ruler who outlawed
the breaking wheel

will meet his end at the
guillotine on January 20th, 1793

before a crowd of thousands.

He's there on the scaffolding

looking out at all
of these people

who are kind of
lusting for his death,

and he finds out
that, of course,

the person that will be
setting the machine in motion

is his former employee
the royal executioner.

Ironically, King Louis XVI

dies by the very blade
he helped design.

By the end of the
French Revolution,

the list of guillotine victims

includes Queen Marie Antoinette

and revolutionary leader
Maximilien Robespierre.

As nearly as we can
tell, some 17,000 people

were killed by the guillotine.

Maybe 15% were
from the nobility,

leaving another 85% from
all the other walks of life.

In 1774, the Reign of
Terror draws to a close,

but the guillotine
remains in service

for another two centuries.

Despite the horror
that the guillotine

came to represent
during the Reign of Terror

in the French Revolution,
it remained France's

only method of public execution,
because no matter what,

it was still seen as more
humane than any other method.

France's last
beheading by guillotine

occurs on September 10th, 1977

with the execution of convicted
murderer Hamida Djandoubi.

And the death penalty in France

would be abolished
ultimately in 1981.

So basically during
the 20th century,

we were putting
people into space

while we also still
chopping off people's heads.

But the guillotine is
much more civilized

than one of the
most excruciating

and elaborate execution
methods ever conceived.

The electric chair...

the breaking wheel,
and the guillotine

remain among humankind's
darkest objects of execution.

But they pale in comparison

to one medieval method

that begins with a rope.

One of the oldest forms of
execution is death by hanging.

That is tying a noose around
somebody's neck and pulling them up,

stringing them up until
they strangle to death.

There are records of
hangings that go back centuries.

The first physical
evidence of hanging

dates from 500 BC...

A person they now
call Tollund Man,

who actually has the rope
still attached around his neck.

There are other
examples in the Bible

and "The Odyssey,"
all sorts of literature,

but we actually have a body.

Because hanging could be
achieved almost anywhere,

over a tree limb, over a beam,

hanging is very easy
and very common.

But towards the 13th,
14th, and then 15th centuries

in England in continental Europe,
hanging becomes a spectacle.

It is a public performance
of state sponsored execution.

As a consequence, some
of those sights of execution

become permanent structures.

By the Middle Ages,
gallows were being built,

and these were
outside of castles,

they were outside
of fortifications,

often at crossroads.

And this is where
people could observe

the hanged body for
many, many days afterwards

until basically the birds ate it

or something along those lines.

To give onlookers a better view,

gallows are often constructed
atop high platforms.

When the lever is
pulled, a trap door opens

allowing the victim
to fall straight down,

being strangled by the noose
and their own body weight.

The laws that you needed to
break in order to be executed

were few and far between.

Murder, theft, counterfeiting,

those warranted capital
punishment, mostly by hanging.

But the most brutal
form of punishment

is reserved for the
highest crime... treason.

It involves three
excruciating forms of torture

that ultimately end in death.

Hanging, drawing,
and quartering,

this is something unique.

This doesn't happen
nearly as often,

and it's extremely gruesome.

The process of being hanged,

drawn, and quartered

really begins at the prison.

The person is often stripped
naked, their hands are bound,

and then they are dragged

to the place of
actual execution.

The point of this
is humiliation.

It is to give people
the opportunity

to throw things, to cause
violence to the victim,

and then you start
with the hanging.

Unlike most hangings,

the goal at this
stage isn't death.

The idea here instead

is to put the noose
around and tighten it

and lift the body so
that they are choking.

You want to bring them
right to the point of death

and then bring them down
so that they're still alive.

And now you begin
the next stage.

Now the drawing
part of this punishment

basically had two methods.

One is you are
literally being drawn

across the cobblestones
by being attached to a horse,

or it's going to mean that you're
going to be disemboweled alive,

meaning that your organs are
going to get drawn out of you.

Basically, your
body is cut open,

and your intestines
are going to be removed.

And then, finally,
came the quartering

in which either a
man with an axe

chopped off your arms and legs,

or horses were gathered
on four sides of you

and a rope was attached to your
various limbs and to the horse.

And someone said, "Giddy-up,"
and there went your limbs.

And at that point, you probably
should've suffered death,

but just in case, they also then
follow that up with a beheading.

And then usually the parts of
your body are put on display,

all to say, "Don't do
what this person did

or the same fate
will await you."

One of the best known
examples of this barbaric practice

is the execution of Scottish
knight William Wallace.

In 1305, William
Wallace helps to lead

a Scottish force that defeats
a far larger English force

in the Battle of
Stirling Bridge.

This definitely puts
a target on his back.

William Wallace is brought just
outside of London to Smithfield,

he's brought in display of
everybody, and he's hanged.

He's cut down before he can die.

He is then laid out

and they begin to pull
various pieces off of him.

He is disemboweled.

His entrails are
burned in front of him,

but he is also castrated.

This is meant to wipe out
the lineage of your enemy

and drive home the point

that Scotland has
no future of its own.

After he is castrated,
he is beheaded,

and his corpse is cut
into four different pieces.

Those four quarters are sent
to the four corners of England,

and they're put on
display on city walls.

His head is placed on a
pike on London Bridge.

William Wallace may have
been a famous victim of this,

but he's by no
means the only one.

The very last person
to actually be hanged,

drawn, and quartered,
this occurred in the 1700s.

But the actual law for
hanging, drawing, and quartering

wouldn't get
outlawed until 1870.

Of all the executions
out there in history,

hanging, drawing, and quartering

was one of the most
painful and humiliating ways

one could ever be
executed in the world.

If the history of execution

has proven anything,

it's that there's often a
dark side to innovation...

and where there's
a will, there's a way

to transform even the
most mundane objects

into instruments of death.