Culture

What Really Happened to Salem’s Witches

TERROR

The hysteria that was the foundation for the infamous persecution of witches in 1692 has contemporary echoes in how ‘witch hunts’ form today.

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De Agostini Picture Library/Getty

Children were the first to show symptoms. They complained of being pinched and bitten during the night. They barked like dogs, crawled under stools and chairs, and flapped their arms in attempts to fly.

They talked nonsense and erupted in spasmodic fits, shuttering and shrieking at random and contorting their faces...

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