Word: salem
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Standing outside the entrance to the graveyard in Salem, Mass., on Halloween night, they looked a little out of place: a handful of sober-looking men, in the middle of a stream of thousands of costumed teenagers, handing out red-and-white pamphlets warning revelers of their imminent damnation...
...fliers were printed by something called the Fellowship Tract League, and their fiery language would have made the dead Puritans in Salem's old burial ground proud. "Thousands of Degrees Hot! And Not a Drop of Water," it warned the parade of Halloween sinners, dressed like Jar-Jar Binks and headed to Hell...
...Salem's Halloween celebration draws thousands of people annually to the haunted houses and themed attractions in town. The MBTA adds extra trains to accommodate the crowds, estimated at about 100,000 for Sunday night alone, and businesses in the city center go all out for holiday. Some even make more on Halloween business than during the Christmas season...
This year, the celebration also attracted about 500 Wiccans, self-professed modern-day witches for whom this is an important holiday and an important place. Salem, headquarters of the Witches' League for Public Awareness, is apparently a hotbed of Wiccan activity...
There's a reason Salem is such a big draw: 300 years ago, as everyone who has read "The Crucible" in high school knows, 19 men and women were hanged here in a five-month witch craze spanning the summer...