The wave of witch trials that swept Christian Europe and its colonies from roughly 1450 to 1750, in which courts prosecuted people for an imaginary crime — a pact with the Devil to work harm by magic. Local grudges, misfortune, and fear produced accusations; torture produced confessions and named further suspects; and tens of thousands of people, most of them women, were executed. The death toll has been badly mythologized: serious historians estimate roughly 40,000 to 60,000 executions, not the 'nine million' of popular legend.
Europe spent three centuries convinced that its neighbors were in league with the Devil. Between about 1450 and 1750, courts across Christian Europe and its colonies tried people for witchcraft — a secret pact with Satan to harm others by magic. The accused were arrested, often tortured until they confessed and named others, and tens of thousands were executed, often burned on the Continent and hanged in England and its colonies. The great majority were women, frequently older, poor, widowed, or otherwise vulnerable. Popular memory has wildly inflated the scale: the 'nine million' deaths sometimes invoked is a myth with no basis. The real figure, as careful historians reconstruct it, is roughly 40,000 to 60,000 executions. That number is smaller than the legend, and still a catastrophe.