A small girl fell sick in 1692. Her “fitts”—convulsions, contortions, and outbursts of gibberish—baffled everyone. Other girls soon manifested the same symptoms. Their doctor could suggest but one cause. Witchcraft.
That grim diagnosis launched a Puritan inquisition that took 25 lives, filled prisons with innocent people, and frayed the soul of a Massachusetts community called Salem.
This was just the begining of what is known as the Salem Witch Trials. The articles about these so called "trials" were not very intresting to me because I dont believe in witchcraft. But I was very surprised by the reactions of my classmates to the assignments. Some of them were surprised and acted surprised by the acts of the village people of 1692. Some the students were scared that this actually happened and that it could happen again. After reading this story, I was happy that this is no longer a problem, or otherwise I would have to put a wooping on one of those witches and beat the "devil" out of them.
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You do realize that the Salem witch trials did actually happen--don't you? This isn't fiction. It's where we get the term "witch hunt"--when hysteria overwhelms people and they begin "hunting down" people. The Red Scare in the 1950's was one such witch hunt when a specially appointed congressional committee began hunting down Russian "spies." Can you think of other "witch hunts" that have happened?
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