Video: 'Bridget Bishop - The First to Die in the Salem Witch Trials'

(Friday, June 10, 1692) — The first execution resulting from the Salem witch trials in Massachusetts took place today as Bridget Bishop, 60, was found guilty today of “certaine Detestable Arts called Witchcraft & Sorceries” and hanged in Salem Village in the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

The Salem witch trials were a series of hearings and prosecutions of people accused of witchcraft in colonial Massachusetts between February 1692 and May 1693.

More than two hundred people were accused. Thirty were found guilty, nineteen of whom were executed by hanging (fourteen women and five men).