Being ripped apart from the inside
by giant wooden stakes! Having your body blown to pieces by a gunpowder
cannon! Being relentlessly tormented by Barney the Purple Dinosaur! And
those are just the humane ones! Welcome to the 50 Worst Punishments
in the History of Mankind! Number 50: Bastinado! Sometimes, you just need to
accept de-feet - especially when the soles of those feet
are being vigorously beaten! Also known as falanga, falaka, and the simple,
straight-forward “Foot Whipping,” this brutal punishment is exactly what it says on the
label - a knotted cane is lashed against the soles of the victim’s feet. Because of
the sensitive nerve endings on the soles, if the punishment is applied too brutally, it
can leave you hobbling for the rest of your life. The punishment has been recorded in the
US, Mexico, Nazi Germany, fascist Italy, colonial India, Cambodia, China, and many more. It
was so historically widespread that it even made it into the Shakespeare play As You Like It, the
works of Mark Twain, and Mozart’s The Magic Flute. And we’re sad to tell you that
there’s evidence of it still being practiced today in a number of
African and Middle Eastern countries. Number 49: The Scold’s Bridle! Making you feel horrific pain and humiliation
just for being a woman who spoke back? That’s what the point of the mask is! From the 16th to the 19th Century, all throughout
Europe, if a woman was accused of being a scold - which could mean blaspheming, gossiping, talking
out of turn, being rude, or just annoying a man - she might be sentenced to the Scold’s Bridle.
It’s a metal cage fitted around the victim’s head, with a spiked metal gag that depresses the
victim’s tongue and prevents them from speaking. If this didn’t seem excessively cruel
and dehumanizing enough, women wearing the bridle would often be paraded around town so
their neighbors could mock or even throw things at them for fun. This won’t be the last time you
hear that happening in this video, we’re afraid. Number 48: The Spanish Donkey! If this donkey takes you for a ride, you may be able to do an uncanny
impression of a wishbone afterwards! Also known as the Chevalet and the far
more boring “Wooden Horse” - C’mon, guys, give us some creativity! - this unholy
device was actually a common fixture of the Holy Inquisitions from the 12th
Century and beyond. It even saw use as recently as the American Civil War! So
what exactly did this horrible thing do? It looks like a minimalist wooden horse with a
sharp edge on top that victims would be forced to straddle, with the sharp edge being positioned
between their - well, there’s no more elegant way to say this - butt cheeks. They’d be forced
to sit there for hours or even days as they’re interrogated, with weights being placed on
their feet to make the torture even worse. Those who didn’t bleed to death on
the donkey or pass away from infection would spend the rest of their lives with
annihilated genitals and an inability to not walk like John Wayne. There are
even accounts of American hero Paul Revere sentencing people to sit on the
Spanish Donkey. What the heck, Paul!? Number 47: The Pillory! While this wooden monstrosity
won’t split your butt in two, it will put you at the mercy of
all the worst people in your town! If you were convicted of a petty offense, you may
have found yourself bound by the neck and hands in an elevated wooden structure in a public place.
Your head and facial hair shaved, you’d be a public display of embarrassment, which the locals
could attend to as they pleased - whether it was throwing rotten vegetables, feces,
or even physically assaulting you. If you’re thinking, “Wait,
isn’t that the stockade?” This is a common misconception - the
pillory binds the head and neck, and the stockade binds the feet. Post-1800,
it was mainly a punishment for perjury. Thankfully, the use of this barbaric
device is confined to the distant, distant past… Except in Delaware,
where it was only abolished in 1905. Number 46: Thumbscrew! We’d give the ingenuity of this torture instrument
a big thumbs up… If our thumbs still worked. Owing to the cruelty of Early Modern
Europe, this miniature vise with - as the name suggests - a screw mechanism was
designed to slowly but surely obliterate the bones in a victim’s thumbs. Sometimes, if
the designer was feeling particularly sadistic, they might include spikes that puncture
the nails before they crush the bones. But we know what you’re thinking: What if my
intended victim has already lost their thumbs? Luckily, variations of the thumb screws
have been made that destroy the big toes, and also ones that can crush all five fingers
on a hand. Variety is the spice of life! Number 45: Yakuza Finger Removal! Life in organized crime may
seem glamorous, but in Japan, if you mess up, it’ll be your little
piggies that are getting the chop! Known as Yubitsume, or “Finger Shortening,”
under the honor system of the Japanese Yakuza, if you mess up, you might need
to reclaim your standing by removing the top joint from your pinky
finger with a razor-sharp tanto knife. The removed digit portion will then
be respectfully mailed to the Oyabun, the family boss of the particular
syndicate the short-fingered gangster works for. It’s like a YouTube apology
video but slightly less embarrassing. Number 44: The Brazen Bull! If you don’t like getting roasted
to death, then moooove on! The Brazen Bull of Phalaris was a possibly
apocryphal method of execution created by Perilaus, the Athenian engineer, for the
cruel dictator named, you guessed it, Phalaris. But this decision ended up being
rather perilous for Perilaus in the end, as he ended up being its first victim. This metal nightmare allegedly worked
by trapping the victim inside the giant bronze bull and lighting a fire beneath them.
Slowly, the victim would get cooked inside, and the smoke of their burning body
would jet out of the brazen bull’s nostrils - and the echoing screams of the
victim would feel like the bull’s roars. And yes, Phalaris did, as the legend goes, see fit to use the bull’s creator to take it for
a spin. There’s a lesson about karma in there. Number 43: Strappado! Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition -
but you can expect them to break your arms! Another infamous method of papal torture
during the medieval era was the Strappado, also known as The Cords, which
involved tying the victim’s arms behind their back and hoisting them up
into the air by their wrists on a winch. They’d either be suspended
for long periods or dropped and hoisted up again, slowly wrenching
your shoulders out of their sockets. Number 42: The Judas Cradle! Fair warning - this one is
going to make you clench! This is another alleged favorite
of the Inquisition. A pointed, triangular block of wood on a raised
wooden structure, which the victim would be positioned on, with the tip of
the pyramid sticking up their rear end. As the torture progressed, weights
would be tied to their feet to send the point further into their body,
slowly mutilating them to death. Told you it’d make you clench! Number 41: Impalement! Because we’re not done terrorizing
your chocolate starfish just yet! Perhaps most famously used by a certain
Wallachian monarch, Vlad the Impaler, there were two ways an impalement
could go down. If you were lucky, a pointed stick would be forced through
your abdomen, killing you with blood loss. If you’re less lucky, a rounded
pole would be shoved up your anus, and your own body weight would
force the pole further in, slowly displacing your organs and
killing you with massive physical trauma. Doing this is the kind of thing that might make people in the future think
you’re a literal vampire! Number 40: Flogging! A true, nightmarish classic - people
just beating the living hell out of you! Perhaps one of the most common forms of
corporal punishment in history is flogging a person with either blunt instruments or a
whip. It’d be impossible to list all the ways that flogging has been used to punish people
throughout history, but maybe the most recent and infamous is the use of flogging by whip on
Black slaves in the United States and abroad. Just because it’s less elaborate
than something the Inquisition might do doesn’t make it any less upsetting. Number 39: Cannon Execution! This one will blow you away! Also known as “Blowing From A Gun,”
this barbaric form of execution came into use almost as soon as the gunpowder
cannon came into prominence. It’s most commonly associated with the oppression
of India by the British colonial powers. Victims would be tied to the front of cannons,
with their bodies up against the barrel, and the cannon would be fired -
blowing the victim into pieces. In some cases, when grapeshot was used, the shot was fired through the bodies of the
victims and ended up mutilating the spectators. Given that they were turning
up to watch an execution, we can’t say we feel that bad for
them being in the splash zone. Number 38: Hanging! A quick but undignified death! Hanging is one of the oldest and most
simple methods of execution. All you need is a rope and a strong elevated
platform. The victims would die of a broken neck in the best-case scenario
and asphyxiation in the less ideal cases. But while this death could often be quick, there
are some humiliating post-mortem side effects. Not only are people executed by hanging liable
to void their bowels at considerable speeds, but if someone with a penis dies
by hanging, they’ve got a decent chance of developing a Death Erection - also
known as a terminal erection and angel lust. Hanging really is a hard way to go. Number 37: The Disco! Described as “Torture Lite” by some, anyone
who’s been detained at a CIA black site may have been subjected to 24-hour rotations
of music played at earsplitting volumes. In case you’re wondering, the
track lists include Metallica, Queen, and even some songs from
the Barney and Friends soundtrack. And that’s torture enough at normal volume! Number 36: Mazzatello! Another papal torture that
treats its victims like cattle! Despite being so holier than thou, the church
certainly had a huge number of ways to violently kill people who broke their laws - but few
had the brutal simplicity of the Mazzatello. Victims would be bashed over the back of
the head with a huge mallet, and if that didn’t fully kill them, the executioner would
pull out a knife and slit the victim’s throat. Number 35: The Guillotine! Giving a simple beheading a touch of class! Made famous during the French Reign of Terror,
this machine - proposed first as a more humane alternative to other methods of capital
punishment - has been used to quickly and efficiently lop the heads off of thousands
of prisoners during mass execution events. That is, if the blade is kept sharp. When guillotine executions fail,
the result is really, really messy. Number 34: Scaphism! Put down that sandwich, buddy,
because this one is beyond disgusting! While we hope this one isn’t real, it’s
believed to be the fate of the boastful soldier Mithridates in Ancient Persia. For
killing the rebellious brother of the king and bragging about it, he was sentenced to
die by scaphism, also known as The Boats. He was force-fed milk and honey until he
experienced severe diarrhea, then smothered in the milk and honey concoction. He was trapped
between two boats and pushed out to the water, where flies and vermin began to
eat him over the course of days. Every so often, he’d be brought back and treated, then force-fed more milk and honey - so
his suffering could go on for even longer. The moral of the story? Don’t
irritate an ancient Persian king. Number 33: Lethal Injection! This is a more modern method of execution, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t horrifying.
People executed by lethal injection have a deadly chemical concoction pumped into their
veins by a group of doctors - wait, no, sorry. Doctors aren’t actually allowed to take part in these executions due to the rules
in the Hippocratic Oath; as such, the execution technicians aren’t highly
trained medical professionals. Because of this, some botched lethal injections have
resulted in horrifically painful deaths. Number 32: Immurement! Fans of Edgar Allan Poe will love this one! You’ve heard the term, “Lock them up and
throw away the key.” But a step further is when you don’t need a key at all -
because immurement is the process of bricking up a victim inside a cell with no
doors and no windows. A punishment where, in some situations, the victim might live
for years before eventually expiring. What kind of monstrous crime would
warrant this kind of punishment? Ancient Roman Virgin priestesses, known as
Vestal Virgins, would be bricked up forever if they broke their vows, which really
doesn’t feel proportional if you ask us. Number 31: Gibbeting! Picture a scold’s bridle, but it’s over your
entire body, and you’re going to die in there. This device, known as a gibbet, is
a particularly cruel form of public execution. Criminals would be locked
away in this full-body cage and left to hang in place until they died of
thirst or exposure to the elements, at which point their bodies might be left
there to rot and be pecked at by birds. Number 30: Mobile Execution Units! This nasty little innovation in state-approved
death from the People’s Republic of China is to execution what food trucks
are to traditional restaurants. As a way of making capital punishment as efficient
as possible, these four-man crew busses drag their victims inside, execute their victims by lethal
injection, and harvest their organs for donation. It may be completely nightmarish,
but there’s no denying that it’s execution elevated to maximum productivity. Number 29: Death by Elephant! For royalty in South and Southeast Asia -
though particularly ancient India - killing your most reviled criminals with an elephant
from your menagerie was a classier way to execute. And if you think it’d be quick and
painless, we’re sorry to disappoint you. Trained to carry out their masters’ commands,
these elephants could kill their victims as fast or slow as they desired. Whether it’s a quick
stomp to the head or being crushed limb by limb, execution by an elephant is an
extremely unpleasant way to go! Number 28: Crucifixion! A method of execution so iconic it’s
become the symbol for one of the world’s most popular religions. Crucifixion
is a barbaric form of execution that involves nailing a convicted criminal
to a cross by their hands and feet. There are some variations on this
method of execution, but generally, the victim would be left to suffer up on the
cross until they died of exposure, thirst, or succumb to their injuries. It makes getting
hanged in the gibbet look positively pleasant. Number 27: The Breaking Wheel! It turns out the cross isn’t the worst
piece of wood you could be attached to! This antiquated European method of execution
entailed tying a victim to a large wooden wheel, and over a number of hours, the
theatrical executioner would either meticulously break or dismember the
victim limb by limb for a wild crowd. In the end, if the victim didn’t succumb to
their injuries, the executioner would deliver a coup de grace - chopping off the victim’s
head. But before you get too high and mighty about the people watching these back then,
remember the video you’re watching right now. Number 26: Waist Chop! If ever you worry you’re spending
too much money on shoes and pants, then maybe the waist chop would be a blessing in
disguise. This ancient Chinese art will render your body into two parts - because this method
of execution is exactly what it sounds like. The executioner would bind the victim to a
table and then use a huge blade to cut the victim in half at the waist. While this method
of execution hasn’t endured into the modern day, the idea of something being “chopped
at the waist” has still endured as a popular phrase in China, often used
to refer to a TV show being canceled. A similar equivalent in Japan is Ikido,
which translates to “Living Torso,” where a pair of men with katanas would slice
their victim at the torso and neck, slicing them in two. This wasn’t always
a method of execution, too - Sometimes, it was used to test the sharpness
of new swords. Two birds, one slash! Number 25: Tunica Molesta! It’s Latin for “annoying shirt,” which
is darkly funny given that this ancient execution method won’t annoy you; it’ll
kill you in a pretty agonizing fashion! The Tunic would be woven with
pitch and then set on fire, immolating the wearer. Historians can’t
agree on who exactly used the Tunica Molesta, but if it’s true that the infamous
Roman Emperor Nero was behind it, we couldn’t deny that it would certainly track
with everything else we know about the guy. Number 24: Death by Sawing! This is not only one of the most painful
ways to die - it’s specifically designed to make sure that you stay awake
to experience the whole thing! There are a few different variations of
death by sawing, but in the most infamous, the victim is tied up upside down by the
ankles - then a large, two-person hacksaw is placed against the… Well, ahem, taint
of the victim, and they’re then manually sawed in half from taint to head, slicing
them into two evenly segmented pieces. And because the victim is upside
down, the blood rushes to their head, and they’ll remain conscious for
the whole experience. After all, why would you want to miss a second of
yourself being sawn in half lengthwise? Number 23: Live Burial! It’s one of your worst nightmares
realized - but if you irritated certain pre-German tribes or
Chinese Emperor Qin Shi Huang, you might find yourself beneath the
earth, waiting to die of suffocation. It’s not exactly a complicated way
to kill somebody, but it certainly feels plucked from your darkest ideas of
how you might slide off the mortal coil. But on the upside, once you do die,
they at least don’t need to bury you. We like to look on the bright
side here at The Infographics Show. Number 22: Necklacing! Normally, oppressive governments use torture and execution against the people - this
time, it was the other way around. Apartheid South Africa was a brutal system that
kept Black people as second-class citizens, and any attempts to fight back were
swiftly beaten down. Some members of the resistance movement adopted necklacing -
the practice of filling a tire with gasoline and hanging it around a victim’s neck,
then setting it alight - as a way of ensuring other Black people didn't
turn their back on the movement. It’s a horrible way to die
and one of the most recent methods of horrific punishment on this list! Number 21: Marooning! If you’re a pirate who’s just tried and
failed to commit mutiny against your captain, you may find yourself left to die on
a desert island while you reflect on the terrible things you’ve done.
This is the process of marooning. And unless you feel ready to pull a Captain Jack
Sparrow and find a secret rum cache or rope two sea turtles together with hair from your back,
your body is likely going to be found rotting on the island when your captain comes back to
maroon the next sorry sap who tried to mutiny him. Number 20: Lingchi! Also known as the Slow Slicing, the
Lingering Death, and most infamously, the Death of a Thousand Cuts, this is
China’s most iconic method of execution. Acting as a kind of lacerative Chinese
counterpart to the breaking wheel, a person convicted of a particularly
nasty crime - such as treason - will be tied up and expertly murdered cut by
cut at the hand of an expert executioner. While a lot of the victims wouldn’t
literally survive 1000 cuts, they would be severely mutilated
before they eventually died. And like many forms of early execution,
it was often made a public spectacle. Number 19: Keelhauling! Another nautical nightmare - if you
committed a terrible crime at sea, your fellow sailors might tie you up and throw
you over the side of the ship. You’d then be dragged beneath the keel, scraping you along the
barnacles embedded in the bottom of the ship. If you were lucky and you felt a little deeper,
you might not be scraped against the barnacles, but you would almost definitely drown.
Whether you’d rather be keelhauled or marooned is between you and your captain. Number 18: Hanging, Drawing, and Quartering! It was one of the most iconic and
elaborate methods of execution of all time, most famously used against Guy Fawkes and
hundreds if not thousands of others. So, beyond the obvious, how does it actually work? It starts with the drawing - where a victim
is tied to a horse and dragged publicly to the place of execution. Then there’s the
hanging - but the hanging isn’t fatal. It’s done to the moment of almost death,
but the executioners want the victims to be alive for the next part. The victims
would then have their genitals cut off, be disemboweled, have their head cut
off, and be cut into four pieces. If you were hanged, drawn, and quartered in
England, your severed head would be mounted on a spike on London Bridge to serve
as a deterrent for other criminals. Number 17: Gas Chambers! This method of execution has been
used by a variety of countries, including the United States, but its most
infamous usage was by the Nazis during the Second World War - where gas chambers were a key
component of the genocidal mass murders committed against Jewish people and other persecuted
minorities in their concentration camps. The intention of gas chambers is either to
poison or asphyxiate the victim to death within an airtight room. Carbon monoxide and hydrogen
cyanide are common agents, but in the case of the Nazi gas chambers, the more specific method of
murder was the cyanide-based pesticide Zyklon B. Number 16: Flaying! That’s a fancy way of saying: Skinned alive. There’s been a long tradition of flaying as a
punishment in various countries, but the true art of flaying is trying to keep as much of the
skin intact as possible as it’s being peeled off. The executioner will also endeavor to keep the
victim alive until all the skin is fully removed. According to Dermatologist Ernst G. Jung,
the actual causes of death for a person who’s been skinned alive are shock, blood
loss, hypothermia, and infection. Personally, we think we’d die of the other kind of
shock if we ever saw this happening. Number 15: Electric Chair! The horror at the far end of the Green
Mile - This method of fiery electrical death was invented by a dentist in
1881 and has been one of the most enduring and iconic methods of American
execution. It works by passing a powerful electrical shock through the body of
the victim, causing cardiac arrest. However, it isn’t always that simple.
Part of the reason that the electric chair has largely been outmoded is that,
when the executions go wrong, the deaths have been slow, grueling, and
incredibly upsetting to watch. Number 14: Death Flights! Most sane people don’t like
flying - but even then, they’re not being thrown out
of the plane to their deaths! It’s been employed by a
number of vicious dictators, including Augusto Pinochet of Chile
and Jorge Rafael Videla of Argentina, and it’s an incredibly effective way to send
a message - by taking your political enemies on a plane or helicopter ride and showing them
that flying really is just falling with style. Number 13: Colombian Necktie! Imagine a really irritated cartel sicario
holding a dagger up to your throat. You might be about to experience one of
the most infamous punishments that South American drug cartels have been known
to deal out to people who have wronged them. In essence, to perform a Colombian necktie, the killer would slash the victim’s throat
and pull their wriggling tongue out of the hole in the neck - letting it dangle down from
the throat like a flesh necktie. Incidentally, drug cartels are the ones keeping some of the
more archaic forms of punishment alive today. Along with a myriad of other nasty things, drug
cartels still regularly practice decapitation, flaying, and emasculation.
Talk about embracing tradition! Number 12: Stoning! This Abrahamic method of execution still sadly
endures in some places today. Typically reserved for crimes of a religious nature, people
sentenced to die by stoning would either be bound or even partially buried -
at which point, a crowd of people, each taking a stone, will throw them at the
victim until they’re bludgeoned to death. In a famous bible story, Jesus
even pointed out the hypocrisy of stoning - Preventing an angry
mob from stoning someone by saying, “Let he who is without sin cast the first
stone.” Sadly, this same hypocrisy has rarely stopped people from engaging in the
act in real-life instances throughout history. The Japanese had their own particular brand
of ritualistic stoning called Ishikozume, where the victims would be buried up to
their waists before being stoned to death. Number 11: Execution by Firing Squad! The 21-gun salute is a great military honor
- Unless those guns are all pointing at you. Execution by firing squad is a form of capital
punishment often used by various historical militaries during wartime as a punishment for
crimes like desertion and mutiny, and there are typically some pretty strict rules and regulations
around conducting these kinds of executions. Multiple soldiers fire their weapons at once,
so the responsibility for the killing shot doesn’t fall on one person. The soldiers would
also often be instructed to aim for the heart, so as not to mutilate the face of the
person being shot. It feels barbaric, but it’s honestly one of the quickest
methods of death on this list. However, in some cases, there may be downsides
for the victim’s family beyond just losing a loved one. Certain governments that have executed
criminals by firing squads may charge their family a Bullet Fee - where they’re made to pay for
the bullets used to kill their relative. Bleak. Number 10: Burning! Humans have been doing this one basically
since they discovered fire - Whether tied to a stake or bound to a pyre, it’s always been
relatively easy to burn someone alive. However, this punishment has often taken
on a strangely gendered quality, as the punishment of burning has often
been turned against women in particular. In the most infamous historical example,
there’s witch-burning - where women accused of witchcraft have been tied up and set on fire.
The pain is said to be worst at the start of the process - because after a certain point, the
fire destroys the sensory nerves in the skin. In Southeast Asia, there’s even the particularly grim topic of Bride Burning - a form of dowry
murder where husbands will set their wives alight in order to punish her and her family for
not paying a big enough marriage dowry. Yikes. Number 9: Boiling Alive! Burning is bad, but this is worse. Yes, it’s exactly what it sounds like
- People would be lowered into a large cauldron full of boiling water
with a hook and pulley system. Boiling someone alive takes a lot
longer to kill them than burning, plus the rather humiliating element of being
reduced to broth once the execution is done. Number 8: Racking! Ever wished you could be taller, with longer
arms and longer legs? The rack can make this possible - at the cost of not being able to
walk. Racks are large wooden tables fitted with shackles and either ropes or chains, which
are bound around the victim’s wrists and ankles. As the torture progresses, the torturer turns
the crank, painfully stretching out the limbs and eventually dislocating the joints.
It’s one of the quintessential medieval torture instruments that you’ve probably
seen in at least one piece of media. Number 7: Waterboarding! While this method of torture has been
in use for an incredibly long time, its most infamous uses were in the
War on Terror during the 2000s. This torture’s widespread use is largely owed
to its brutal simplicity - all you need is a source of water and a piece of cloth. The
cloth is placed over the victim’s face, and then water is poured onto the
cloth, simulating the sensation of drowning. The victim will also often
have a black hood placed over their head, so they don’t know when to expect the water
and thus will be taken off guard by the water. Even hardened CIA agents can barely tolerate
it for more than a couple of minutes. Of course, drowning of the more
traditional variety has also been a common form of both torture and execution. All you need is a source of water for this
one - you don’t even need the cloth. Number 6: Mock execution! You don’t always need to kill
someone to torment them - Sometimes, it’s enough to just make them
think they’re going to die. In order to psychologically torture victims, a
number of oppressive regimes have made captives believe they’re going to die before pulling
the rug out from under them at the last minute. One common method of mock execution is
having a victim blindfolded with a gun pressed up against their head or firing the
gun just off to the side of the victim’s head. It’s another form of torture that
entered the zeitgeist following reports of its usage against detainees of the
US military during the War on Terror. Number 5: Rat Torture! Game of Thrones fans will be familiar
with this nasty little number. Most common in the Middle Ages, this torture
involved trapping a rat in a box or bucket up against the body of the victim. A source
of heat would be placed up against the bottom of the containment unit, which causes the rat
to begin to panic and try to escape the heat. Which it does… By clawing and
chewing its way through the victim. While the Middle Ages gave us that one, it
didn’t end there. Multiple reports from the 1960s through to the 1990s indicate that
a number of South American dictators in countries like Chile and Argentina were still
more than happy to use it on their prisoners. Number 4: The Blood Eagle! While the evidence is pretty thin that
this horrific nightmare ever existed outside of Norse legends, it’s existed in
the nightmares of history fans for a long, long time. According to the legends, this
Viking method of torture involves tying someone to a tree with their
belly up against the trunk. The torturer would then slice into the
victim’s back, cracking through the ribs and pulling the lungs out of the body cavity
so they rest against the back like a pair of fleshy wings - a blood eagle. Yeah, we
hope this just exists as a legend, too. Number 3: White Torture! No, we don’t mean listening to Vanilla
Ice’s discography - we mean a horrifying form of Iranian psychological torture
inflicted on political dissidents. To understand this torture, though, you first
need to understand something about psychology: the human brain requires new stimuli, and in the
absence of new stimuli, it will create its own. It’s why your face starts to look a little strange when you stare at yourself
in the mirror for too long. White Torture takes this phenomenon to
its logical extreme - trapping victims in a completely white room where the lights are kept
at full intensity 24 hours a day. Even the guards, whom the victim would rarely see, would
dress in completely white costumes. Over time, the sheer level
of psychological boredom, coupled with stress and sleep deprivation,
would result in hallucinations and psychosis, torturing the prisoners in
a hell of their own making. Number 2: The Pear of Anguish! This elegant but horrifying little device,
also known as the choke pear, was designed to expand out like a flower as the crank on the
back is twisted. It wouldn’t kill the victims, but this singularly unpleasant
device expanding in your throat was sure to leave you with traumatic
memories for the rest of your life. Though sadly, the mouth was not the only orifice
that the pear of anguish was used to torment… And of course… Number 1: The Head Crusher! For our money, this is one of the gnarliest
punishments of all. Picture a nutcracker but for a human head rather than a delicious
walnut. Formed of a large metal crushing implement attached to a crank, the
torturer could slowly crank the head crusher and increase the tightness of
the device around the victim’s skull. If it was cranked all the way, you could
expect to see your brains splattered all over the wall. But even if you
survived, you’d probably be doing it with a deformed skull and face for the
rest of your life. Wasn’t the past lovely? Which method of punishment horrified you the
most? Let us know down in the comments! Now check out “Insane Japanese Torture Methods Used During
World War II - Unit 731.” Or watch this instead!
