King Philip’s War: “The Bloodiest War in American History”
“Always brutal and everywhere fierce, King Philip’s War, as it came to be called, proved to be not only the most fatal war in all of American history but also one of the most merciless,” Jill Lepore wrote in her award-winning book The Name of War: King Philip’s War and the Origins of American Identity ...
Benjamin Harris and his Publick Occurrences
On September 25, 1690, the first issue of Publick Occurrences Both Forreign and Domestick hit the streets of Boston. With that issue, Benjamin Harris published the first attempt at an American newspaper. Harris intended for his newspaper to be printed monthly. It contained four pages — three with printed news and a blank one for ...
Murderous Manners of 17th Century Europe
Among the reports in issue numb. 12 of the Oxford Gazette is this one: “Edinburgh, Dec. 15. Yesterday four young Fellows were whipt by the common Hang-man through the City, their Ears burn’d, and they afterward delivered to be Transported to the Barbado’s, for abusing one Mr. James Scot, Minister at Ancran, in Sermon time. ...
The Great Scottish Witch Hunt of 1661-1662
The history of events relating to European witch hunting can be traced back to the Medieval Inquisition and the Knights Templar. Yes, long before the Salem witch trials of colonial Massachusetts, witchcraft — and by consequence witch trials and witch burning — had spread across Europe (remember, the American colonists brought over both good and ...
