Sheer nothingness

Terrorism is not an old concept. The term itself was coined back in the 1790s, so to refer to the terror, the fright caused during the French Revolution by the revolutionaries against their opponents. Maximilien Robespierre's Jacobin party carried out a Reign of Terror, involving mass assassinations, and executions by the guillotine. Though back then, terrorism meant an act of violence initiated by a state against its domestic enemies.