My son, Will, is doing a report on guillotines following the reading of A Tale of Two Cities in his 10th grade English class. That prompted me to do some looking about. reign of terror (OED: 1798) found in NewspaperArchive.com (1795) guillotine (OED: 1793) found in NewspaperArchive.com (1792) Happy New Year, David Barnhart barnhart at highlands.com