Today of all days, and for reasons known only to themselves, the Smithsonian Magazine decided to publish an article on class warfare and schemes of execution.

“Highwaymen were broken on the wheel, witches burnt at the stake and thieves hung,” wrote Eamonn Carrabine, a sociologist and criminologist at the University of Essex in England. Aristocrats, on the other hand, were usually beheaded with a sword, a privilege that “was not extended to most commoners, who were decapitated by an unwieldy ‘heading axe’ that bludgeoned its way through the neck, often requiring several attempts.”