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"The Pit and the Pendulum" is a short story written by Edgar Allan Poe and first published in 1842 in the literary annual The Gift: A Christmas and New Year's Present for 1843. The story is about the torments endured by a prisoner of the Spanish Inquisition, though Poe skews historical facts. The narrator of the story describes his experience of being tortured. The story is especially effective at inspiring fear in the reader because of its heavy focus on the senses, such as sound, emphasizing its reality, unlike many of Poe's stories which are aided by the supernatural. The traditional elements established in popular horror tales at the time are followed, but critical reception has been mixed. The tale has been adapted to film several times.
A gas chamber is an apparatus for killing humans or other animals with gas, consisting of a sealed chamber into which a poisonous or asphyxiant gas is introduced. The most commonly used poisonous agent is hydrogen cyanide; carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide have also been used. Gas chambers were used as a method of execution for condemned prisoners in the United States beginning in the 1920s and continue to be a legal execution method in three states. During the Holocaust, large-scale gas chambers designed for mass killing were used by Nazi Germany as part of their genocide program. The use of gas chambers in North Korea has also been reported.
Riquewihr is a commune in the Haut-Rhin department in Grand Est in north-eastern France.
York Dungeon is a tourist attraction in York, England. York Dungeon depicts history of the dungeon using actor led shows, special effects and displays of models and objects.
The Punjab lasso is a type of weapon referred to in Gaston Leroux's novel The Phantom of the Opera. It is described as a noose but employed like a garotte to strangle victims. The name was derived from the Punjab region of India and present day Pakistan where the title character learned to use it.
Esmeralda is a steel-hulled four-masted barquentine tall ship of the Chilean Navy.
The Amsterdam Dungeon, in the city of Amsterdam, Netherlands, follows a similar format to the London Dungeon, York Dungeon, Berlin Dungeon and Hamburg Dungeon which are owned and operated by UK-based Merlin Entertainments and attempts to show history through an interactive adventure. Live actors, a ride, shows and special effects simulate historical dark and bleak times.
Maury Troy Travis was an American murderer and suspected serial killer who committed suicide in custody in St. Louis County, Missouri, after being arrested for murder. Travis was named in a federal criminal complaint for the murders of two women. At the time of the murders, he was a hotel waiter and on parole for a 1989 robbery. While Travis claimed in a letter to have murdered seventeen women, some authorities were doubtful; others thought he may have murdered up to twenty women.
Maximilian Grabner was an Austrian Gestapo chief in Auschwitz. At Auschwitz, the infamous torture chamber Block 11 was Grabner's own empire. He was executed for crimes against humanity.
Castello di Amorosa is a castle and a winery located near Calistoga, California. First opening its doors to the public in April 2007, the castle is the pet project of 4th generation vintner, Dario Sattui, who also owns and operates the V. Sattui Winery named after his great-grandfather who originally established a winery in San Francisco in 1885 after emigrating from Italy to California.
Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights prohibits torture, and "inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment". There are no exceptions or limitations on this right.
The brazen bull, bronze bull, or Sicilian bull, was allegedly a torture and execution device designed in ancient Greece. According to Diodorus Siculus, recounting the story in Bibliotheca historica, Perillos of Athens invented and proposed it to Phalaris, the tyrant of Akragas, Sicily, as a new means of executing criminals. The bull was said to be made entirely out of bronze, hollow, with a door in one side. According to legends the brazen bull was designed in the form and size of an actual bull and had an acoustic apparatus that converted screams into the sound of a bull. The condemned were locked inside the device, and a fire was set under it, heating the metal until the person inside was roasted to death. Some modern scholars question if the brazen bull ever really existed, attributing reports of the invention to early propaganda.
Mirror Dance is a Hugo- and Locus-award-winning science fiction novel by Lois McMaster Bujold. Part of the Vorkosigan Saga, it was first published by Baen Books in March 1994, and is included in the 2002 omnibus Miles Errant.
Ashoka's Hell was, according to legend, an elaborate torture chamber disguised as a beautiful palace full of amenities such as exclusive baths and decorated with flowers, fruit trees and ornaments. It was built by Emperor Ashoka in Pataliputra, the capital city of the Maurya Empire. The torture palace's legend is detailed in the Ashokavadana, the text that describes Emperor Ashoka's life through both legendary and historical accounts.
Berlin Dungeon is a tourist attraction from a chain including the London Dungeon and Hamburg Dungeon. It provides a journey through Berlin’s dark history in an actor led, interactive experience. There are both German and English shows and the actors speak German and English.
Rosenkammaren was a torture chamber in the prison Nya smedjegården in Stockholm.
