The last hanging of a convicted witch during the Salem Witch Trials happened on this day in 1692, and today is the day that Unitarian John Biddle died in 1662 from an illness contracted during his fourth term in prison.
Some estimate that there may have been 40,000 to 50,000 executions for witchcraft in Europe in the past, and 19 so-called witches were hung in Salem. Some like to say that 50-68 million heretics were killed by the Church, but that number is grossly over-blown. Also, most Unitarians (people who denied the Trinity teaching) were killed by Protestant authorities, or at least with the recommendation of Protestant clergy. One Unitarian, Norbert Capek, founder of the Czech Unitarian Church was even killed at the Dachau concentration camp in 1942.
Perhaps the first witch executed was Theoris of Lemnos (before 323 BC) in ancient Greece. Using magic was not prohibited in Greece at the time, but she was condemned as a murderer in a poisoning death.
The first Unitarian martyred was possibly William Sawtrey in 1401 (that's if we are not including any anti-Trinitarians killed during the Arian controversy of the 4th century).
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