torture: Quick Facts

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The Information Architects of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Photos

mandatory bath punishment

Black-and-white illustration of a Dartmoor prisoner in striped uniform turning a large crank handle as punishment. Instructions for the number of turns per day are posted on the wall.

Aquatint illustration showing four men locked in a pillory on a raised wooden platform, surrounded by a jeering crowd in early 19th-century English dress.

Hand-colored engraving showing prisoners walking on a large wooden treadmill under a roof at Brixton prison, London, in 1827, with a guard overseeing them and others seated nearby.

restraining irons

Illustration showing British prison life in 1907: men walking on a treadmill for hard labor at the top, and at the bottom, a prisoner tied to a post being whipped with a cat-o-nine-tails while a guard watches.

Spanish Inquisition

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Topics

ducking stool Cruel and Unusual Punishments: 15 Types of Torture Waterboarding Today in History—May 2: A War Changed by the Blink of an Eye rack corporal punishment war terrorism violence hate speech flogging pillory moral panic cucking and ducking stools treadwheel bullying

Key People

“The Blood Countess”

Elizabeth Báthory

Hungarian countess

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Klaus Barbie

Nazi leader

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Prospero Farinacci

Italian jurist