A series of hearings and prosecutions of people accused of witchcraft in colonial Massachusetts between February 1692 and May 1693, caused by mass hysteria. The trials resulted in the executions of twenty people, while five others (including two infant children) died in prison.
Salem Witch Trials
Fact of the Day
Butchers who sold off meat in medieval London ran the risk of being placed in the pillory and having their meat burnt beneath them, so that the rancid smoke would rise into their face.
Quote of the Day
"And if I am to estimate the penalty justly, I say that maintenance in the Prytaneum is the just return.
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~ Plato reporting Socrates' suggestion for punishment
On This Day
1579 Thomas Gresham, merchant, financier, and founder of the Royal Exchange, died suddenly, apparently of apoplexy. He bequeathed his estate, after the death of his wife, to the Corporation of London and the Mercers' Company to set up a college to provide free lectures to the public; Gresham College thus became London's first institution of higher education.
1916 The hospital ship Britannic, sister-ship of Titanic, hit a mine and sank, killing 30.
1918 Ten days after the Armistice, the German navy surrendered to the British in the Firth of Forth.
1920 The assassinations of British intelligence officers ordered by Michael Collins in the Irish War of Independence led to thirty-one dead (from both sides) in what became known as 'Bloody Sunday'.
1974 21 people were killed and 182 injured when bombs exploded in two Birmingham pubs. The IRA was probably responsible, but the real culprits have never been found. The Birmingham Six, originally convicted of the bombings, were released because of dodgy police practices.
1981 The proceedings of the House of Commons were televised live for the first time.