Word: executioner
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But home games are where the over nightesrs shine, scenes of in evolving ritual that dates back into the years of Coach John Wooden, the Wizard of Westwood. Through chants of "Who's he?" "Big deal" "So what" "Who cares?" and "Go home" after the introduction of the visitors' line...
Not until the Enlightenment, 200 years ago, did societies seriously question the states' right to kill. Until then, the only dilemma had been to find the most ingenious and cruel methods of execution. Boiling, burning, choking, beheading, dismembering, impaling, crucifying, stoning, strangling, burying alive-all were in vogue at...
...more than 200 offenses, including stealing turnips, associating with gypsies, cutting down a tree or picking pockets. "Hanging days" were public holidays, and in 1807 a crowd of 40,000 became so frenzied at an execution that nearly a hundred were trampled to death. Frequently both victims and executioner were drunk, and occasionally the job was botched, with the condemned man being hanged two or even three times. Afterward the crowds surged toward the corpse, because it and the scaffold were believed to have curative powers...
Death sentences were often arbitrarily applied. The social standing, sex, citizenship or religion of the victims usually determined the degree of horror they would suffer. Death alone was rarely considered a sufficient penalty unless it was preceded by terror, torture and humiliation, preferably in public. One of history's...
"The more public the punishments are, the greater the effect they will produce upon the reformation of others," declared Seneca in ancient Rome. Over the centuries, many societies came to believe otherwise. The rituals of execution, rooted perhaps in a primitive need for sacrifice, catharsis and revenge, seemed less to...