On this day in 1612, the "Samlesbury witches", three women from the Lancashire village of Samlesbury, England, are put on trial. It becomes one of the most famous witch trials in British history. Eighty years later in 1692 five people, one woman and four men, including a clergyman, were executed after being convicted of witchcraft during the Salem witch trials.

Learn about how the 1600s were plagued with abuses such as these and step into the eyes of the persecuted women in the form of a poem about one of them, Halfhanged Mary.

Today is August 19, 2020.

This is the Librarian’s Almanac.

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