Beheading

Beheading is a form of execution involving severing a person's head. Lately it has emerged as a form of murder, both secret and open, committed for fanatical motives.

Beheading became an accepted method of execution in the Roman Empire. Roman law held it a more dignified form of punishment appropriate to a Roman citizen convicted of a capital offense.

The most famous specialized form of beheading was, of course, the guillotine, the "National Razor" of France from the French Revolutionary era to about 1983.