To continue with the Halloween/Witches theme for October, I will be sharing Witch Hunt: A Century of Murder.  This program is presented by Suzannah Lipscomb narrates program.  There are scenes of violence and torture in this documentary.  This documentary should be shown to older students.

Scotland is where the witch-hunting began.  Queen Anne was coming to Scotland.  She had just married King James and was sailing from Denmark to make her home in Scotland.  However, the journey proved treacherous.  One ship sunk and the ship Queen Anne was sailing on nearly capsized.  She returned to Denmark.  King James decided to go to Denmark to bring her back.  Not only did he bring a bride back but he brought back something else.

At the time the Danes were influenced to hunt out witches.  The church seemed to back this hunting wish idea.  Witches were the devil’s handmaidens and bent on doing destruction.  While in Denmark, King James came face to face with that reality.  While he was in the Danish Court, two witches were arrested and put on trial.  They confessed to causing the sea storm to kill the Scottish King and the new Scottish Queen.  This shocked him however he carried on, bringing his new wife back to Scotland.  He would have continued to carry on if it was not for David Seaton.

David Seaton was the deputy bailiff in a Scottish town.  He caught his servant girl slipping out of his house late at night.  Gilles Duncan was the young servant girl.  She had suddenly acquired healing powers and had been sneaking out at night.  He thought she had made a pact with the devil and was determined to prove it.  She promised she was not a witch.  However, Seaton tormented her into confessing.  Her fingers were crushed.  She refused to confess to being a witch even as her fingers were crushed.  Seaton pressed further, tying ropes around her head to wrench it.  She still did not confess to something she did not do.

She was not broken and Seaton hardened his torture.  It was only when he discovered a mark on her neck did Gilles confessed.  What about this mark that made her finally confess to witchcraft?  Was it shame?  No matter what, her confession was the first in Scottish history.  She was brought to prison and kept there.  She gave up eight names of wishes.  One hundred supposed witches were arrested and tortured.  Additionally, she confessed that her coven was in league with the Danish witches who wanted to kill King James.  This was the case that made King James realize that there were witches in his kingdom and thus kicking off witch-hunting in Scotland.  He became involved in the case.

Agnes Sampson was one of the “witches” arrested.  She was a midwife.  She was tortured.  She confessed to witchcraft.  She was brought to King James to be interrogated.  She repeated the confession to King James.  King James seemed skeptical at first.  King James was a widely read king and was inspired by rationality and rational examination.  He denounced her as a liar.  However, she whispered something to King James that made him change his mind.  It was enough to convince him to believe that she was a witch.  Why did Agnes say this statement to the king?  Did she want to scare him?  Or was did she want to end her suffering?

King James ordered that her torture be ended as a result of this confession.  Agnes Sampson was executed as a witch.  Several other witches were executed as well.  These were people scared out of their wits, who wanted to end their torture.  They were garroted and burned to death.  These executions were only the beginning…

Continue to watch Witch Hunt: A Century of Murder to learn more about witch-hunting.  Learn how witch-hunting had the King’s stamp of approval.  Learn how witch-hunting ended up in England as well.

You can access the YouTube Video here.

Now Suzannah Lipscomb explores the hidden killers of the post World War II home.  Britain was traumatized after World War II that they wanted to make sure their homes were a safe place.  Home owners created colorful home in order to capture the hopeful spirit of the age.  However in trying to create a safe haven they introduced new dangers into the home.

The first hidden killer in the home was found in the child's bedroom and it was the chemistry set.  For the first time, children could have their own bedrooms and they had their special toys they could keep in the bedroom. There were few instructions that came with the set and there were a variety of chemicals that came with it.  Mixing chemicals together caused a variety of explosions and hurt children.  Test tubes were flimsy.  There was no mention of how to dispose of chemicals.  The only advice that was given in case clothing caught on fire.  The American chemistry set came with uranium and a Geiger counter and allowed children to experiment with radiation.  However it wasn't a big seller.  This hidden killer was done away with when manufacturers stopped including explosive chemicals in their sets.

The second hidden killer was plastic.  Plastics became cheaper to manufacture in the 1950's.  Sofas were made from Polyurethane.  However, these sofas would catch on fire due to the smoking habit people had during the post war.  One couple escaped their home through a window and down sheets.  Their settee had caught on fire.  Polyurethane also gave off toxic fumes when on fire which could kill you sooner than the flames could.  Plastic clothing was also a killer, especially if they caught on fire.  If someone was standing in front of the fire, the clothing could catch on fire and burn a person.

The third killer was something that we take for granted: television set.  TV's were in their experimental stages during this time and could easily catch on fire.  As the technology became better, then this hazard went away.

The fourth hidden killer was DIY, Do It Your Self people.  The 1950's became the Do-It-Your-Self generation.   Handymen were busy with rebuilding Britain after the war, so the homeowner decided to do repairs and fixing themselves.  TV encouraged that families could get together and knock down a wall and fix up the home.  There was an enormous range of DIY projects that the family could do together.  However, there were perils to doing things yourself, such as electrical work.  Many people did not know what they were doing, unlike the professionals.  The public were soon advised that when in doubt they should hire professionals.

To continue to learn more about the hidden killers of the post war home continue to watching the episode.  Hint, the next hidden killer was found in the kitchen and how the abundance of food gave people ideas on what to do with it.  The final hidden killer was found in the bathroom.

This is a fun documentary that should be used in the classroom, especially for a brain break.  However, if you have a sub in the classroom there will be questions provided.

You can highlight, copy, and paste the questions into a Word, GoogleDoc or Google Classroom document for use in school or home school.  Format it the way you want to.  All questions after formatting should fit onto one page.

You can access the video here.

Hidden Killers of the Post War Home Questions
1.  About how many people made up the British Middle class?
2.  What was the first hidden killer?
3.  What was the child supposed to do if his friend caught on fire? 
4.  What was included in American chemistry set?
5.  What allowed products to be produced cheaper? 
6.  How did sofa's catch on fire? .
7.  Was plastic flammable? What made plastic flammable?
8.  What could catch on fire and cause burns? 
9.  Which sex did this affect more, boys or girls? 
10.  What was designed to look like furniture? 

Hidden Killers of the Post War Home Answers
1.  About how many people made up the British Middle class? - 15-20 Million
2.  What was the first hidden killer?  - Chemistry set
3.  What was the child supposed to do if his friend caught on fire?  Throw him to the floor and smother the fire
4.  What was included in American chemistry set?  - uranium and a mini Geiger counter
5.  What allowed products to be produced cheaper?  - Plastics
6.  How did sofa's catch on fire?  Due to smoking
7.  Was plastic flammable?  What made plastic flammable?  On it's own not, the additives that were put in plastic that made it flammable
8.  What could catch on fire and cause burns?  Clothing
9.  Which sex did this affect more, boys or girls?  - Girls
10.  What was designed to look like furniture?  Television

Suzannah Lipscomb explores the hidden killers of the Edwardian home.  Queen Victoria died and it was the dawn of a new century.  The modern age was ushered during this time.  New ideas started to flourish during this period.

Suzannah looks at the first hidden killer: Electricity.  It was a new invention and at the time was not regulated like it is now.  In Victorian times, gas light was used but it was dirty.  Electricity was cleaner.  Gas and electric companies were in competition with each other.  Electricity was expensive and marketed to those who could afford it.  If you had the money and you wanted to be seen as sophisticated you needed to have electricity.  However, the wires were just bare and one touch you could get electrocuted.  The first wires were insulated with paper or lead which caught fire.  Despite this, there were many electric appliances invented.  There was an electric exhibition that showed off many electric items: lamps, hair brush, curling tongs, iron, and table clothes.

The next hidden killer in the Edwardian home was Asbestos.  It was strong, cheap, and was versatile.   The Edwardian's used it everywhere.  They used it in pipes and water tanks.  Floor tiles, ceiling tiles, toilet seats were also made from Asbestos.  However, it was a health hazard.   It was dusty and caused cancer.  It caused scaring in the lungs as well as difficulty breathing.  It was the most hidden of hidden killers and it took a long time to act.  The women were the most affected by Asbestos.

The next hidden killer in the Edwardian home was found in the kitchen.  It was the refrigerator.  However, the early fridges were all experimental and the chemicals they used in the refrigerator were unregulated and the inventors used guess work to figure out how to make things colder.  They used dangerous chemicals in the early fridges which could kill people if they leaked or were a fire hazard.  The Edwardian rich used refrigerators.  They were expensive. 

The final hidden killer in the Edwardian home was found in the bedroom.  Actresses inspired the trend since it was now becoming a respectable occupation for women.  They advertised make up, soaps, and other beauty treatments.  Edwardian women had to have pure, white skin in order to separate the women who worked outdoors.  Many of these treatments contained arsenic which would eventually kill them.  To continue to learn more about the hidden killers continue to watch the documentary.

For use in the classroom: just highlight, copy and paste into a word document or a google document for use in the classroom.  You can easily format these questions to your specifications.  All questions should fit onto one page after formatting.

You can find the link for the YouTube video here.

Hidden Killers of the Edwardian Home Questions:
1.  Who was the king that came after Queen Victoria? 
2.  How many British patents were issued?
3.  What was a new exciting Edwardian product? 
4.  Which two men invented the light bulb? 
5.  Who had electricity in their home?
6.  What was heated on the stove before electricity? 
7.  What type of fires rivaled coal?
8.  What provided clean energy? 
9.  Who were the most affected by asbestos? 
10.  What killed people more than car crashes? 

Hidden Killers of the Edwardian Home Answers:
1.  Who was the king that came after Queen Victoria?  -  Edward VII
2.  How many British patents were issued?  - 140,000
3.  What was a new exciting Edwardian product?  - Electricity
4.  Which two men invented the light bulb?  - Joseph Swan and Thomas Edison
5.  Who had electricity in their home?  - Lord and Lady Churchill
6.  What was heated on the stove before electricity?  - Iron
7.  What type of fires rivaled coal?  - Gas and Electric
8.  What provided clean energy?  - Asbestos
9.  Who were the most affected by asbestos?  - Women
10.  What killed people more than car crashes?  - Asbestos

Suzannah Lipscomb explores the hidden killers of the Victorian Home.  The home was a domestic haven during this period.

The Middle class was bombing and they were creating homes that were cozy safe havens.  Gadgets started to become more available.  Consumerism started to boom and it was the first time that "standard of living" started to appear.  You measured how good your life was based on how many objects you possessed.  Good taste was a moral quality.  However what they welcomed into their homes was potentially deadly.

The first killer of the Victorian home was found in the drawing room.  This killer was found on the walls of the house.  Green was a popular color.  It was found in wallpaper, toys, and carpets.  However, reports of deaths and illnesses rose.  The ingredient in wallpaper that caused the illnesses or death was arsenic.  The Victorians were unaware of what was poisoning them and would have thought that there was a cholera outbreak.  The affects of arsenic poisoning were similar to cholera.  Newspapers slowly started to report the link between the wall paper and the mysterious illnesses that plagued the Victorians.  Germany eventually banned the sale of arsenic wallpapers.  Queen Victoria eventually banned Green wallpaper from her palaces and then the English government finally stood up and paid attention.

The next hidden killer in the Victorian home: the bedroom.  The Victorian woman needed to look just right.  Lipscomb looks to the corset as the next hidden killer of the Victorian home.  A small amount of Victorian Women tight laced their corsets and it shifted their internal organs and caused pneumonia.  Suzannah participates in an experiment with tight lacing.  She takes the stairs and walks on a treadmill and feels lightheaded after the experiment.  The sports medicine doctor finds that her breathing was changed.   To see an alternate opinion on corsets check out this video. 

The next hidden killer was found in the kitchen.  New gadgets were created in order to help out with keeping the home.  Gas was brought into the home to help with light and heat.  People dying from gas were widespread.  It was colorless and odorless.  Gas companies sabotaged each other at the expense of the people.  It was all experimental when gas was incorporated into the home to tragic consequences.

To find out about more killers continue to watch the documentary.  You also may want to use this series in a science class as well and ask the students how Suzannah applied the scientific method to the hidden killers of the home.

For use in the classroom: just highlight, copy and paste into a word document or a google document for use in the classroom.  You can easily format these questions to your specifications.  All questions should fit onto one page after formatting.

You can find the link for the YouTube video here.
 
Hidden Killers of the Victorian Home – Questions

1. Which class grew during the Victorian Period?
2. What inspired the Victorians to spend? 
3. What phrase appeared for the first time in history? 
4. Who said “to teach taste is to form character?” 
5. What room did Suzannah start in? 
6. What indicated good taste and good standards? 
7. What was found in wallpaper that was a hidden killer?
8. How did people make the connection between illness and wallpaper?
9. How much arsenic was in a Victorian Room? 
10. Who owned an arsenic mind? 

Hidden Killers of the Victorian Home – Answers

1. Which class grew during the Victorian Period?  - Middle Class
2. What inspired the Victorians to spend?  - Great Exhibition of 1851
3. What phrase appeared for the first time in history?  - Standard of Living
4. Who said “to teach taste is to form character?”  - John Ruskin
5. What room did Suzannah start in?  - Drawing Room
6. What indicated good taste and good standards?  - Wallpaper
7. What was found in wallpaper that was a hidden killer?  - Arsenic
8. How did people make the connection between illness and wallpaper?  - They went to the seaside
9. How much arsenic was in a Victorian Room?  - 2.5 milligrams of arsenic
10. Who owned an arsenic mind?  - William Morris

Death was frequent in the Tudor period, however the home proved to be a dangerous place.  Suzannah Lipscomb explores the hidden killers of the Tudor Home.

Towards the end of the Tudor period, the middle class had money and they spent it on their homes.  They built new kinds of houses.  The first hidden killer of the home came through the kitchen: sugar.  With trade and colonization new foods were introduced to the Tudor diet and sugar was one of these new dietary items.  Food was a way the Tudors displayed their wealth.  Sugar was white gold and they disguised it as normal every day food.  There was consequences to their sugar addiction: it ruined their teeth.  The archeological record shows how it ruined their teeth: they lost their teeth, it causes decay, and there were infections that eventually killed the person.

Chimneys also killed people as they did not realize that they needed to clean them nor design them to draw the smoke up to them.  Chimneys allowed builders to divide the house into rooms, rather than living in a great hall, people could live in individual rooms.  However, due to build up in the chimney, the smoke could catch fire and then eventually catch the house on fire.  Houses started being built from brick and chimneys were redesigned to allow the smoke to be drawn out and not build up soot in the chimney.  They also discovered that they had to clean their chimneys.

With digitized records, Suzannah was also able to note that one of the biggest causes of death was drowning.  A corner's report documented the case of a woman, who fell into a pond while washing a petticoat, drowned.  There were many instances of people just slipping and falling into the water and drowning.  She demonstrates this cause of death by dawning period clothes and walking into a shallow pond.  Her reaction to getting into the water is immediate and she had a hard time getting out of the pond due to her woolen clothes.  A participant in the documentary shares that when you first hit the cold water, you gasp from the cold and take in water.  To avoid this cause of death, water courses were fenced off and there were covers on wells.

The Tudor Garden was also a hidden killer of the home.  It was a source of medicine for the family.  There was a body of knowledge available to the Tudor Housewife and she would use that to help heal her family.   However, there were plants in the garden that would kill.  It was the ultimate in free medicine for a family.  150 plants had medicinal qualities.  Tansy was a mild poison, however if you constantly take it becomes toxic. They believed if the plant looked like if what it was treating it was a good plant to use.  The Gutenberg Press helped spread the medical knowledge of the day.  They were popular materials of the day and explored the benefits of each plant.

If you want to learn more, continue to watch the documentary.

This would be a documentary I would use for research for a class lecture.  There are some science elements to this documentary as Suzannah applies the scientific method to hidden killers.

For use in the classroom: just highlight, copy and paste into a word document or a google document for use in the classroom.  You can easily format these questions to your specifications.  All questions should fit onto one page after formatting.

You can find the link for the YouTube video here.

Hidden Killers of the Tudor Home Questions:

1. Who made up the middleing sort?
2. Where were the first hidden dangers introduced in the house?
3. What was “white gold.”
4. Can bad teeth kill you?
5. What new technology help make the home easier to live in?
6. How do you prevent chimney fires?
   
7. What was the extension to the home?
8. What percentage of accidental deaths were due to drowning?
9. What was considered a Tudor first aid kit?
10. What was widely used, but became toxic towards the end of the year?

Hidden Killers of the Tudor Home Answers:

1. Who made up the middleing sort? - Professionals, artisans, yeoman farmers, merchants
2. Where were the first hidden dangers introduced in the house? - Kitchens and dining rooms
3. What was “white gold.” - Sugar
4. Can bad teeth kill you? - Yes
5. What new technology help make the home easier to live in? - Chimney
6. How do you prevent chimney fires? - Cleaning them
7. What was the extension to the home? - Water sources, rivers, ponds
8. What percentage of accidental deaths were due to drowning? - 40%
9. What was considered a Tudor first aid kit? - Garden
10. What was widely used, but became toxic towards the end of the year? - Tansy