Horrible history

During the 900 days of the siege of Leningrad in the Second

World War, 1,500 people were accused of cannibalism.

Mary Stuart, queen of England from 1553 to 1558,

had 274 people burned at the stake just for being

Protestant Christians. 

The Mongolian ruler Ghengis Khan imposed the death penalty

for urinating in water because water was so precious in the

Mongolian desert.

During the time of Henry VIII of England, who reigned from 1508

to 1547, the punishment for poisoners was to be boiled alive.

Monks in Sicily, Italy, mummified dead bodies until 1920. A display of

6,000 can be seen in catacombs in Palermo, standing around or lying

on shelves.

The fifteenth-century German king Wenceslas was so angry with his

chef after a particularly bad meal that he had him roasted alive.

During witchcraft trials in Salem, Massachusetts,

USA, in 1692, 25 people were condemned to death

on the flimsy evidence of a group of hysterical girls

In Africa, it was common to bend back springy saplings and tie

them beneath the ears of someone about to be beheaded,

so that the person’s last sensation would be of their head

flying through the air.

Until 1868, criminals could be transported from England – sent to

Australia for seven or fourteen years – for even petty crimes.

The youngest victim was a boy of nine, transported for stealing.

In Ancient Babylon, a doctor who

accidentally killed a patient had his

hands cut off

In 1685, a wolf that terrorized a

village near Ansbach in Germany

was sentenced to be dressed in

human clothing and hanged.

The body of William the Conqueror was too big

for his coffin, so two soldiers jumped up and

down on him to try to squish him in. This broke

his back and made his stomach explode