Today in Science History

On May 9 in 1794, mathematician-physicist Joseph-Louis Lagrange laments over the previous day's guillotining of Antoine Lavoisier, one of history's greatest chemists: "Only a moment to cut off that head, and a hundred years may not give us another like it." Lavoisier fell victim to the Reign of Terror in France at age 51.
—from The Illustrated Almanac of Science, Technology, and Invention