Salem witch trials Salem witch trials The Salem witch trials were a series of hearings and prosecutions of people accused of witchcraft in colonial Massachusetts between February 1692 and May 1693. More than 200 people were accused, nineteen of whom were found guilty and executed by hanging (fourteen women and five men). One other man, Giles Corey, was pressed to death for refusing to plead, and at least five people died in jail. It was the deadliest witch hunt in the history of the United States. Twelve other women had previously been executed in Massachusetts and Connecticut during the 17th century. Despite being
Valais witch trials Valais witch trials The Valais witch trials consisted of a witch-hunt including a series of witch trials which took place in the Valais (the prince-bishopric of Sion, today part of Switzerland) beginning in 1428. The Valais witch-hunt is the first of the systematic campaigns which would become much more widespread in the decades to come, initiating the period of witch trials in Europe. The persecutions started in French-speaking Lower Valais and spread to German-speaking Upper Valais and to nearby valleys in the Western Alps. They subsided after six to eight years (c. 1434/6), but the phenomenon spread further afield from