Nobody was burned at the stake in Salem — they were hanged

Popular imagination pictures Salem's accused witches burning, but English and colonial law punished witchcraft by hanging. Nineteen people were hanged in 1692, and Giles Corey, who refused to enter a plea, was pressed to death under stones instead. Not one person was burned at Salem.

— Mary Beth Norton, In the Devil's Snare: The Salem Witchcraft Crisis of 1692 — Introduction, 2002
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