(1743 - 1794)
Author of the oxygen theory of combustion and one of the creators of the metric system, chemist Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier is known as the leader of the eighteenth-century chemical revolution. He served in the French government before the revolution. During the Reign of Terror, he was arrested for selling adulterated tobacco. The trial took only one day, and the tribunal found him guilty. Lavoisier was guillotined along with his father-in-law and twenty-six other enemies of the people.