Salem — Witch Trials, Halloween & New England's Darkest History

Salem, Massachusetts (the city 28 km (17 miles) north of Boston, population approximately 44,000 — the site of the 1692 Salem witch trials, the most notorious episode of mass hysteria in American colonial history, and the most-visited Halloween destination in the United States): the Salem witch trials (the series of prosecutions and executions (January-September 1692) that resulted in the execution of 19 people (14 women and 5 men) by hanging, one man pressed to death by stones (the only person in American history to be executed in this manner), and the imprisonment of approximately 200 more (of whom 5 died in jail)) are the most studied and most culturally resonant episode in the colonial history of New England.