crucible

Modern Day Witch Hunts and Similar Events

Through out time many people have viewed witches as bad people. Even in religion witches are viewed as workers of Satan himself. “A man or a woman who is a medium or a necromancer shall surely be put to death. They shall be stoned with stones; their blood shall be upon them” Leviticus 20:27 King James Bible. Throughout our world’s history there have been thousands if not millions of witch hunt cases around the world. During the Bubonic Plague people blamed witches for what was going on. Then in the early years of the Dark Ages people where convinced of these so called witches and other mythological creatures. At first people where scared to go outside at night because they thought that the witches, would get them. However, when people began to learn how to read, they realized that witchcraft was against what the bible says. So this led to even more people being accused of being a witch. During the colonial era when the European countries where colonizing the world, England was a breeding ground for witch hunts. The religious persecution of small Christian groups in England led to the Puritans leaving the country. Arriving in the 13 colonies, here one of the worst witch trials in American history took place in Salem Massachusetts. These are known as the Salem Witch Trials, in which over 100 people were blamed for witchcraft and almost all of them were killed. These trials were not alone though, many others countries have their own versions of the Salem trials. However, in today’s time these so called witch hunts are not common in countries like the US, and there are laws that prevent actual witch hunts from happening. There are still countries that have witch hunts within their borders ba...

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...tler took control of Austria he had death squads ordered to find and kill every Jew in the country. But this plan was to slow, so he had a new plan developed for the elimination of the Jews. Adolf Eichmann, a Nazi officer came up with the Final Solution. The plan was to send all the Jews to extermination camps. During the Third Reich over 6 million Jews were killed in Europe. After war the Jews were then given their own country, Israel.

All of these are examples of modern-day witch hunts. Everything from racial actions towards certain people, to the hunting down of terrorist and dictators, to the actual witch hunts in the third world countries. Just like in the play The Crucible people use fear as a primary weapon. Knowing some ones fear is like having a finger on the button to destroy the world. Everyone will do what you want if you know how to use their fear.