The moment
Between about 1560 and 1660 courts across Europe tried tens of thousands of people for witchcraft, a crime defined as a pact with the Devil. Modern estimates put the trials at roughly 100,000 and the executions at 40,000 to 50,000; about three-quarters of those executed were women, though the share varied from region to region. Catholic and Protestant territories executed witches alike, and the Jesuit Friedrich Spee's Cautio Criminalis of 1631 attacked the abuses of the trials.
People: Friedrich Spee, Anna Göldi