There were 12 witch trials in Maryland history (that we know of), and the last one took place in Annapolis in 1712. Five were capital cases, with two convictions and one execution.
WJZ ran a story on the walking tour I wrote, which looks at the history of the accusations, the superstitions behind them, and the local lore that grew up around them.
[https://www.cbsnews.com/baltimore/news/beyond-salem-maryland-has-a-history-of-witch-trials/\](https://www.cbsnews.com/baltimore/news/beyond-salem-maryland-has-a-history-of-witch-trials/)
There are still a few spots left on the Pub Crawl and Walking Tours this week if you want to hear the stories in person: [https://annapolisghosts.com\](https://annapolisghosts.com/)

One thing worth knowing this time of year: a lot of the ghost tours you'll find online are run by national companies that operate in dozens of cities. If you're booking a tour in Annapolis, look for one that's locally owned and researched. Shopping local keeps the money in town and keeps the stories accurate.

In Baltimore - for ghost tours please visit our friends at https://baltimoreghosttours.com

Odria followed pragmatic and nationalist policies and launched massive investments in infrastructure under the slogan "deeds, not words". The Korean War increased the value of exports, allowing Odria to fund the construction of further public works that greatly modernized Peru.

In 1955, Odria began a transition to democracy in exchange for impunity for himself. A year later, his successor Manuel Prado y Ugarteche was elected.

Odria returned to politics as the leader of the Odrist National Union (UNO), but he never regained his former power. He died in 1974.

Japanese Brazilians were heavily isolated from the rest of Brazilian society, and most of them didn't even learn Portuguese. This isolation was strengthened by the Vargas regime's Brazilian nationalist policies.

The Shindo Renmei were so isolated from the outside world they believed Japan had won WWII and killed anybody who knew Japan lost. The terrorists killed 23 people and wounded another 147.

Five centuries of North America in one animation: from a continent held wall to wall by Native nations, through the Spanish, French, English, Dutch, Swedish and Russian footholds, to the United States, Canada and Mexico of today. The colours show who really held the ground: a Native nation until its land was settled, conquered or signed away by treaty; a colonial power only around its towns, forts and missions and on land it had taken. The ribbons are the borders the powers claimed on paper: New Spain, New France and Louisiana, New Netherland, New Sweden, the British colonies and Rupert's Land, Russian America, and the United States from 1776. Watch the Dutch on the Hudson (1624–1664, and once more in 1673–74), the fall of Huronia, the Pueblo Revolt, the Proclamation Line, the treaty cessions rolling west from 1784, the removals to Indian Territory, and the reservations that remain. How to read it. Inside the United States, Native land follows the 718 cessions that Charles Royce mapped in 1899, each with the legal date of its treaty or act; land therefore often stays Native on the map after settlers had in fact overrun it, and the Comanche plains are dated to their real loss in 1875. Before the treaties, a nation's country is the land nearest to its known villages: an approximation, since borders between nations were zones, not lines, and many smaller peoples are grouped with their neighbours. Colonial areas are circles around settlements that widen with age. Today's reservations (United States) and reserves (Canada) of about 150 km² and more are drawn, together with the lands that modern treaties gave back into Inuit, Dene and Cree ownership: Inuvialuit (1984), Nunavut (1993), Gwich'in, Sahtu, Tłı̨chǫ, the Yukon First Nations and the James Bay Cree, each from the year of its agreement. Thousands of smaller reserves are too small to show at this scale. Alaska counts as Native land until the Claims Settlement Act of 1971, Hawaiʻi as a Native kingdom until 1893. Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean are drawn more coarsely (Canada by treaty area, Mexico by state). The first Europeans in North America were the Norse, around the year 1000 in Newfoundland; the animation starts with Columbus's landfall. Dates and places come from standard reference works; the towns and forts were re-checked against their articles, the smallest posts and the Native village points were not. Sources: C. C. Royce, Indian Land Cessions in the United States (1899; digital edition by the US Forest Service); US Census Bureau, American Indian areas (2023); Natural Resources Canada, Aboriginal Lands of Canada Legislative Boundaries; Natural Earth; Wikipedia articles on the settlements, treaties and nations.

Link to interactive map in the comments.

Jiménez's right-wing, anti-communist administration was highly repressive and persecuted and tortured his opponents. He was also corrupt.

In 1958, Perez Jiménez was overthrown in a coup and exiled to the Dominican Republic. He was later extradited to Venezuela and spent five years in prison for corruption, only to be released. He eventually died in 2001.

Despite being a leftist, Hugo Chávez admired Perez Jiménez.

Feels like such a good and dense subject for a show or documentary.

All the shenanigans they did for votes, the environmental damage they did and left behind in Montana

Art historian Roberto Amigo reflects on a depiction of San Martín, created during the Peruvian War of Independence by an artilleryman from Piura, circa 1820–1821.

The work is a letter addressed to José de San Martín. Its illustrated cover bears the following inscription: “Joseph Antonio Flores, humble sergeant of the Piura artillery, dedicates this crude effort of his pen and patriotism to the hero, liberator, and restorer of virtues, His Excellency Don José de San Martín—may God protect him.”

This inscription appears at the bottom of an ink drawing—a piece that should be considered part of the early iconography of San Martín. It is particularly notable for having been produced while the war was still underway, by an artilleryman from Piura who had engaged with the discourse of the Enlightenment.

The pen-and-ink illustration depicts an imagined monument to San Martín: he is shown full-length, standing on a pedestal, dressed in a military coat and sash, wearing a plumed hat, loose-fitting trousers, and rustic footwear; he carries a large saber and a standard. This latter element is key to the representation, as it offers insight into the invention of early republican symbols. While it resembles the flag sworn in Piura—featuring a central sun (a symbol associated with the emancipatory "Incaism" movement) surrounded by the phrase "I shall banish the shadows"—it also incorporates the motif of two forearms shaking hands (derived from the seal of the Río de la Plata region) and lacks the diagonal lines that divide the field into four quadrants.

In other words, it does not correspond to the provisional flag design proposed by San Martín on October 21, 1820—a design for which a likely visual record exists in a period watercolor held by the National Historical Museum, attributed to Charles Wood. At the base of the monument are allegorical Indigenous elements (a bow, a quiver of arrows, and a feather headdress). On either side of the depicted statue, two Indigenous figures are shown breaking their chains.

The entire image is interspersed with inscriptions against tyranny, written in the patriotic, impassioned rhetoric of the emancipation era: from the mouth of San Martín come the words, “Follow in the footsteps of the Liberator, and may the bloodthirsty ‘Godo’ [Spanish] lion perish!”; there are also messages from the Indigenous figures regarding unity and freedom, as well as an inscription from an announcing angel—accompanied by the customary cheers—and a star that lights the way.

General Archive of the Nation. National Historical Museum Collection – AR-AGN-MH01-64-10715...

The case, which spanned from December 1863 to February 1864, involved accusations of human sacrifice and ritual cannibalism that took place near Port-au-Prince; it remains one of the best-documented criminal and religious trials in 19th-century Haiti.

The Concordat and the Political Context

The trial occurred during the administration of President Fabre Geffrard. Aiming to align Haiti with Western European standards and fulfill the conditions of the 1860 Concordat—a diplomatic reconciliation with the Vatican—Geffrard’s government actively sought to suppress religious practices of African origin, such as Vodou. The Bizoton trial provided a legal mechanism to rigorously enforce new, stricter penal codes against these practices.

The Alleged Crime and the Victims

In December 1863, in the village of Bizoton, a 12-year-old girl named Claircine was kidnapped. The primary instigators were her uncle, a man named Congo Pelé, and his sister, Jeanne Pelée, who was a Vodou priestess (*mambo*). According to court testimony, Congo Pelé sought to perform an occult ritual to gain the favor of the spirits. They took his niece, Claircine, tied her beneath an altar, and subsequently carried out the ritual sacrifice.

Gruesome Details

According to testimony recorded during the trial, the details regarding the mutilation and consumption of the victim included:

• The sacrifice: The girl’s throat was cut to extract her blood for ritual use.

• Boiling the head: A man identified as Floréal took the girl’s head and placed it in a large pot along with yams, boiling it into a soup. • Cooked with beans: The remaining flesh was butchered and cooked by Jeanne Pelée. Testimonies detail that the meat was prepared as a stew with Congo beans (*pois congo*)—a small, bitter variety of bean—based on the perpetrators' explicit belief that human flesh tasted better when boiled with them.

• Eating from the palm: While the meat was being prepared in the kitchen, another woman in the group, Roséide Sumera, allegedly cut a piece of flesh directly from the palm of the girl’s hand and ate it raw. She later admitted to this act during a public trial.

The Trial and Executions

Following rumors that circulated in the capital, the police arrested the group. The court proceeded swiftly.

On February 13, 1864—a busy market Saturday in Port-au-Prince—eight individuals (four men and four women, including Congo Pelé, Jeanne Pelée, Floréal, and Roséide Sumera) were publicly executed by a firing squad for the crime.

Tacuche suit

Pachuco

Ubico was nicknamed "Central America's Napoleon", because he admired Napoleon and surrounded himself with statues and paintings of him.

Ubico passed a vagrancy law, admired Hitler, banned married women from working as teachers, and gave the United Fruit Company extensive privileges in Guatemala, but he also eradicated corruption and paid Guatemala's debt to the British.

1 July 1944, Ubico was overthrown in the Guatemalan Revolution. He died two years later.

Mauá built Brazil's first railway and its first shipyard, created its first gas company, and established its first modern bank. He opposed slavery and the slave trade and was similarly responsible for the installation of the first underwater telegraph cable between South America and Europe.

Despite these achievements, Mauá faced opposition from supporters of slavery and a lack of support from the Brazilian monarchy. Consequently, he went bankrupt by 1875 and was forced to sell his businesses to foreign capitalists.

Mauá eventually died in 1889, less than a month before the proclamation of the Brazilian republic.