Innocent people are accused
There are actual witch hunts going on today in some parts of the world, though the people of the rest of the world know better than to hunt for actual witches. There are things metaphorically called witch hunts going on today in parts of the world where people know better than to hunt for actual witches. Sometimes the things metaphorically called witch hunts are worse. There is a link to an article on witch hunts below.
touch me
Year 2009: Still in some parts of the world, [for an example in India and Pakistan], there are Witch Hunts reported.
The last woman believed to be executed for witchcraft in Europe was Anna Göldi in Switzerland, 1782. If you are wondering about the Salem witch-trials then that started and ended in 1692. There are still witch-hunts that are reported to have occurred until the very recent past in some less developed areas of the world, however I am unsure of how true the accounts are. The modern witch-hunts are said to be committed by angry mobs and not in the form of any kind of trial.
Unlike most European witch hunts, the Salem panic did not convict the stereotypical witch evey time. In Europe, witch hunts began when someone died unexpectedaly or something close to that happened and a person who fit the traditional view of a witch was blamed and executed. In Salem, the girls called out on people that cannot all be connected by one trait.
Well theres the burning at the stake, the drowning.
In an historical perspective, it was the search, or hunting of witches or evidence of witchcraft that in some instances were actually legally sanctioned searches that led to the arrest and trials of many individuals many of whom were executed in horrible ways. Many of these actual witch hunts were fueled by mass hysteria and panic that led to mob lynches. This period of witch hunts spanned the late 1400's up until the 1700's where hundreds of thousands of men and women were executed for witch craft. Before Arthur Miler wrote the play The Crucible, there does not seem to be another historical event ever to using witch hunts as a political or social metaphor. Miller used his own experiences with the House on Un-American Activities Committee, (HUAC), and paralleled it to the Salem witch hunts of 1692. The Crucible was first performed in New York in 1953. Since that day the term witch hunt has come to mean: Searching out and harassing dissenters.
some commen witch names in the modern age would brenda, gretta, eliza, & jasmen
to work the gun
Movies, and plays.
the crucible and Salem witch trials