Lavoisier: The Father of Modern Chemistry Who Lost His Head

On May 8th, 1794, during the Reign of Terror, a fifty-year-old French chemist named Antoine Lavoisier was guillotined in Paris alongside 27 other former tax collectors. Five years earlier he had published the textbook that gave modern chemistry its language: oxygen, hydrogen, the conservation of mass, the modern elements. The mathematician Joseph-Louis Lagrange reportedly said it took only a moment to cut off that head, and a hundred years might not produce another like it. This is Episode 10 of The Great Discoveries: How Science Built the Modern World. We explain in plain English, name the people, and resist the myths. Watch the next video in the series: the frog legs that launched the battery. ▶ Watch next: Frog Legs to the Battery: How Galvani and Volta Invented Electricity https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tehGnM5SCxA 📺 Full playlist: The Great Discoveries: How Science Built the Modern World https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlIAFxS2964-3v5fFwk4loCBPCYUW-8kY Chapters: 0:00 The Afternoon They Guillotined a Genius 2:38 The Young Lavoisier: Money, Science, and a Very Expensive Laboratory 8:32 Oxygen and the Death of Phlogiston 14:17 The Traite: Writing a New Language for Chemistry 18:07 The Revolution Turns: The Tax Farmer in the Terror 23:19 Marie-Anne After: The Widow Who Saved the Legacy 27:01 Modern Echo: When Science and Politics Collide 32:34 Quiz Time 35:06 Key Takeaways #explained #learn #2026 --- Disclosure The avatars and voices in this video are AI-generated. All content -- research, scripts, lesson design, and the custom video engine -- is created by a CISSP, CISM, and PMP certified professional with a Master's in Project Management, a B.S. in Information Technology, and a Doctorate in Business Administration in progress. This channel exists to make learning accessible and straightforward. Educational history-of-science series. This channel does not represent any university, research institution, or scientific body. The series presents the historical record of how scientific ideas were discovered, contested, and refined — including the mistakes, the politics, and the people who paid for being right too early. Where science and other domains intersect (religion, ethics, public policy), the series presents the arguments without endorsing a position.