Jayhawker Soule

It's not 9/11, but it deserves to be <a href="http://www.salemweb.com/memorial/stones4.htm" target="_blank">remembered</a>.

[fixed URL reference - RD]

[ September 17, 2002: Message edited by: ReasonableDoubt ]</p>

Zimyatin

Just another example of what happens when people turn their back on God.

Here's the <a href="http://www.salemweb.com/memorial/stones4.htm" target="_blank">link</a> again.

atheist_in_foxhole

Giles Corey, pressed to death on September 19, 1692

Evil Milkman

Pressed to death? Yikes...

Exactly how was pressing to death achieved? Anyone know?

Orestes

They put a large stone on you and let it press down on you till you died, probably through suffocation, I think.

Edited to add: Pressing was used because it didnt draw blood, as that was against their religious beliefs, apparently.

[ September 17, 2002: Message edited by: Orestes ]</p>

atheist_in_foxhole

<a href="http://www.witchesway.net/links/adoptawitch/gilescorey.html" target="_blank">In memory of Giles Cory</a>

Bree

I was under the impression that pressing to death was punishment for being a warlock?

GaryP

I seem to remember reading someplace that the calendar was changed in the early 18th century.

It was discovered that the earth's revolution of the sun had been miscalculated and they had to add 11 days. This got my attention when someone wrote that G. Washington had actually been born on Feb.11 but the change made it Feb. 22.

Does anybody else know anything about this?

seanie

The old roman calendar had calculated the length of the year wrong. By the 16th century this had accumulated and religious holidays were clearly falling at the wrong time.

Pope Gregory instituted the Gregorian Calendar to correct this. This was gradually adopted by most countries.

However it meant dropping days not adding them.

Consequently this led to riots as many people believed they were being cheated out of several days of their alloted time on earth.

[ September 18, 2002: Message edited by: seanie ]</p>

BigBlue2

The problem with the Julian calender (named after Julius Caesar who implemented it) was that it calculated the solar as being exactly 365.25 days which is a touch too long. To make up for this an extra day was added to February every fourth year. However, as seanie mentioned, by the 16th century the differences had accumulated so that the equinoxes were somewhat out of kilter.

As a result, Pope Gregory XIII did some tweaking. In the Julian calendar, a year is a leap year if it is divisible by 4. In the Gregorian calendar a year which is divisible by 4 is a leap year unless it is divisible by 100 but not by 400 (in which case it is not a leap year). In plain english, this means that years ending in '00 have to be divisible by 400 in order to be a leap year. For example the years 1700, 1800 and 1900 were not leap years because they are not divisible by 400. The years 1600 and 2000 were leap years because they were divisible by 400.

To make up for the 11 or so days that the calendars were out of whack, Pope Gregory XIII decreed that October 4, 1582 would be followed by October 15, 1582. The British being Protestants didn't adopt the Gregorian calendar until 1752 when September 2, 1752 was followed by September 14, 1752.

Can you tell I'm fascinated by this stuff?

As for the pressing to death of the unfortunate Mr Corey - well that was just one of many ways in which Christians of those days chose to share the "Good News". Burning at the stake was another way to spread Christian love.

[ September 18, 2002: Message edited by: BigBlue2 ]</p>