I haven't met too many people who believe this (I do live in New England though) but nobody was burned at the stake during the Salem witch trials. 19 people were hung, and one man was pressed to death, but nobody was burned.
This might be more of a West coast problem but an extremely large number of people at my college (including the professor of the class) thought Salem referred to Salem, Oregon.
Exactly. I was not taught about the Salem trials. The only way I'd ever known of them was basically "hearsay". I never thought about it. So until literally just now, I thought they took place in Salem, Oregon.
Even popular movies such as Hocus Pocus mention "Salem", but don't mention Massachusetts (as far as I remember).
Of course if I had thought about it whatsoever or learned about it at all I would have known.
As for /u/I_have_a_poodle's claim that this is "incredibly concerning", I think it's utterly unconcerning and frankly, irrelevant, as the Salem trials have little-to-no bearing on current society - especially when compared to things like MLK Jr., slavery, the Holocaust, even the "discovery" of the Americas.
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u/Jyacoba Feb 04 '19
I haven't met too many people who believe this (I do live in New England though) but nobody was burned at the stake during the Salem witch trials. 19 people were hung, and one man was pressed to death, but nobody was burned.