Who assassinated Jean-Paul Marat in his bathtub?

Charlotte Corday assassinated Jean-Paul Marat in his bathtub. On 13 July 1793, she fatally stabbed the radical journalist and Jacobin leader during a medicinal bath in his Paris home.

Corday was a sympathizer of the Girondins, a faction increasingly opposed to the influence of the more radical Montagnards and Jacobins. She believed Marat’s political writing and influence had helped drive revolutionary violence, including the September Massacres of 1792.

Marat suffered from a severe skin disorder and spent much of his time in a medicinal bath, where he also continued political work. Corday gained access by claiming to have information about Girondin supporters in Normandy. After speaking with him, she attacked him with a knife.

Corday was arrested immediately, tried by the Revolutionary Tribunal, and guillotined on 17 July 1793—four days after Marat’s death. Jacques-Louis David’s painting The Death of Marat later turned Marat into a revolutionary martyr, while Corday became a controversial symbol of anti-Jacobin resistance.