Short answers, pulled from the story.
In the year 331 before the Common Era, Rome executed at least 170 women accused of causing a deadly plague through veneficium. This event marked one of the earliest recorded instances of a society hunting witches on a scale unknown anywhere else in the ancient world.
German monk-inquisitors Heinrich Kramer and Jacob Sprenger wrote the Malleus Maleficarum, which was published in the year 1486. This treatise became the most sold book in Europe for over 100 years, second only to the Christian Bible.
Cunning folk were magical healers who practiced apotropaic magic to protect communities, whereas accused witches were targeted for maleficium. Laws such as the Constitutio Criminalis Carolina of 1532 and the Danish Witchcraft Act of 1617 explicitly stated that workers of folk magic should be treated differently from witches.
The Maka people of Cameroon believe in an occult force known as djambe, which dwells inside a person and is often translated as witchcraft or sorcery. This substance can act on its own while the witch is sleeping or unaware, driving them to do harm.
An estimated 500 older women are murdered each year in Tanzania following accusations of witchcraft, according to a 2014 World Health Organization report. These modern witch-hunts are part of a broader pattern of violence against women and marginalized groups.
Gerald Gardner pioneered the Wicca movement in the 1940s, which emerged as a new movement since the 1930s. This movement redefines the term witchcraft, transforming it from a symbol of evil to a badge of spiritual identity.