Coke Scare of 1999
By: Max Duong
Salem Witch Trials
The Salem witch trials began in 1692 after a group of young girls began to accuses local women of making deals with the devil and conducting witchcraft. Salem was a very Puritan town, they took religion very seriously. They though that an everyday task was to help keep the devil away as long as you remained a good Christian. Others began accusing each other due to suspicion and resentment. Bridget Bishop was the first woman to be accused and condemned.
Coca Cola Scare of 1999
The Coca-Cola Scare of 1999 began in Belgium when more than 30 students were taken to the hospital due to dizziness, stomachaches, and nausea. Two laters some adults at a bar complained about getting the same symptoms that the children had gotten. There was a 10 ban on all Coca-Cola products due to this event. Samples of the Coca-Cola that the adults had drank were sent to labs to do tests, the results came back and stated that there were traces of sulfur in the carbon dioxide used to carbonate the drink. This claim was denied due to the fact that the concentrations of these were too low to cause any illnesses. With the mass hysteria going on around the Coca-Cola in Belgium, this alarmed other European nations
Coke Scare vs. Salem Witch Trials
Both of these events had spread very quickly and cause some distress in the region, this caused the government in Salem to respond with sending them help in the form of judges, in Belgium's case, the government got involved and so did other European nations. Both of these events began to make accusations with little or no clear evidence that this was the cause of their problems. The witches in Salem were either proven as "witches" with very minimal or no evidence such as spectral evidence. In Belgium, they had blamed Coca-Cola just due to the smell and that they had gotten sick, without looking at the other things that they could have done to case harm to their own body. In the end the ban on Coca-Cola in Belgium was reversed, but the events in Salem however were not reversed. The events in Salem were strongly due to their religion, they believed that the Devil was always trying to find a crack in their faith and get in, so they believed that the witches were a sign of the Devil and this caused many deaths in the end. The Coca-Cola scare had nothing to do with religion.