Ahhh, You Are A Fiend Witch. I Am Gonna Go Now.

Salem Witch Trials And Arthur Miller, Among Other Things.

We all know about the Salem Witch Trials, and many of the Witch Hunts back in the 1600's.  They are a huge part of our history today, and some pretty ugly stories have come out of them.  They all started when a women was accused of witchcraft.  This caused mass hysteria in many locations around the world, but predominately in Europe and North America.  The witch hunts lasted from the 1400's to the 1800's.  Along with mass hysteria, the witch trials, hunts, and executions, caused moral panic and lynching.  These so called witches, were executed and most of the time killed by hanging.  Estimates say that over 40,000 "witches" where executed during the time.  There was a lot of intolerance and moral dilemmas during this time.

Witch Craft was very popular in the town of Salem.  Witch-craft was criminalized in the year 1641.  When you are accused of witch craft, you are automatically guilty.  Most witches could swim.  One test to see if you were a witch, was dropping you in deep water to see if you could swim.  If you could, they killed you.  If you could not swim, then you drown anyways.  Either way, you still lose.  Back in that time period, all of the towns people were very "by-the-bible" and did everything by the bible.  They strongly believed in the devil and his works, along with witchcraft.  When some one did the smallest thing out of the ordinary, they were accused of being a witch or being bewitched, which is a term commonly used as to reference being under control of a witch, or the devil himself.  Some examples of witches are; Sarah Good, Mary Easty, Rebecca Nurse, John Proctor, and Bridget Bishop.  They were executed.

Arthur Miller wrote the novel "The Crucible"  which was based on The Salem Witch Trials, but in more depth, the story of a bunch of girls had many hallucinations and seizures.  In the story, 19 people, and 2 dogs were convicted and hanged of witch craft.  Arthur Miller was born on October 17, 1915, in New York City, New York.  He died on February 10, 2005 in Roxbury Connecticut.  He died at the age of 89.  He had a pretty great career from writing stories, plays, and novels.  He studied the Salem Witch Trials for about two years and wrote the novel "The Crucible."  Also, he had gotten a lot of awards for his works.  such as the national medal of arts among others.  (2005-02-10)