Louis XVI was beheaded in 1793.
Mary, Queen of Scots, was beheaded for plotting against Queen Elizabeth.
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After only five minutes of exposure to the parasite, 22.4% of sperm cells were beheaded.—Bill Sullivan, The Conversation, 28 May 2025 The 28 statues of saints were beheaded, mistaken for French kings, and some of the bells were removed and melted down.
1804: Napoleon Bonaparte crowned himself emperor of France with the pope in attendance in Notre-Dame, and portions of the cathedral were restored.—Marla Jo Fisher, Oc Register, 21 May 2025 The lamplight of Louisville, seen from the river, became a chain of beacon fires bringing news from Old Europe, where King Louis XVI, who gave the city its name, would be beheaded.—Jonathon Sturgeon, Harpers Magazine, 29 Apr. 2025 The group beheaded Palmyra's head of antiquities, Khaled al-Assad, and then systematically blew up several of the ancient city's most important monuments.—Jane Arraf, NPR, 17 Apr. 2025 But would you rather be blasted by tiny pieces — which really hurts — or beheaded or stabbed in the heart by a large shard with tape dangling off of it?—Howard Cohen, Miami Herald, 28 May 2025 Men on electric scooters zoomed past a square where prisoners used to be beheaded, now a few blocks away from a gleaming new metro station.—Vivian Nereim, New York Times, 16 May 2025 The Scholl siblings, their friends and their professor were beheaded for urging students at the University of Munich to oppose the Nazi regime.—Peter Nguyen, The Conversation, 30 Apr. 2025 But recently in the DRC, where 95% of the population are Christian, no one stopped Islamist rebels from forcing 70 Christians into a church where they were butchered, beheaded with machetes.—Paul Tilsley, FOXNews.com, 21 Apr. 2025
Word History
First Known Use
before the 12th century, in the meaning defined above
Time Traveler
The first known use of behead was
before the 12th century
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