Vampir

"Superstitions are for the most part shadows of great truths." -Tryon Edwards

• 1047 First appearance of the word "upir" (an early form of the word later to become "vampire") in a document referring to a Russian prince as "Upir Lichy", or wicked vampire. 1190 Walter Map's "De Nagis Curialium" includes accounts of vampire like beings in England. 1196 William of Newburgh's "Chronicles" records several stories of vampire like revenants in England.

• 1428/29 Vlad Tepes, the son of Vlad Dracul, is born.

• 1463 Vlad Tepes becomes Prince of Wallachia and moves to Tirgoviste.

• 1442 Vlad Tepes is imprisoned with his father by the Turks.

• 1447 Vlad Dracul is beheaded.

• 1451 Vlad flees to Transylvania.

• 1456 John Hunyadi assists Vlad Tepes to attain Wallachian throne.

• 1459 Easter massacre of boyers and rebuilding of Dracula's castle.

• 1462 Following a battle at Dracula's castle, Vlad flees to Transylvania. Vlad begins 13 years of imprisonment.

• 1475 Summer wars in Serbia against Turks take place. November: Vlad resumes throne of Wallachia.

• 1476/77 Vlad is assassinated.

• 1560 Elizabeth Bathory is born.

• 1610 Bathory is arrested for killing several hundred people and bathing in their blood. Tried and convicted, she is sentenced to life imprisonment, being bricked into a room in her castle.

• 1614 Elizabeth Bathory dies.

• 1725-32 The wave of vampire hysteria in Austrian Serbia produces the famous cases of Peter Plogojowitz and Arnold Paul (Paole).

• 1734 The word "vampyre" enters the English language in translations of German accounts of European waves of vampire hysteria.

• 1810 Reports of sheep being killed by having their jugular veins cut and their blood drained circulated through northern England. "The Vampyre," an early vampire poem, by John Stagg is published.

• 1854 The case of vampirism in the Ray family of Jewell, Connecticut, is published in local newspapers.

• 1872  In Italy, Vincenzo Verzeni is convicted of murdering two people and drinking their blood.

• 1874 Reports from Ceven, Ireland, tell of sheep having their throats cut and their blood drained.

• 1924. Fritz Harmann of Hanover, Germany, is arrested, tried and convicted of killing more than 20 people in a vampiric crime spree.

• 1931 Peter Kurten of Dusseldorf, Germany, is executed after being found guilty of murdering a number of people in a vampiric killing spree.

• 1954 "I am Legend" by Richard Matheson presents vampirism as a disease that alters the body.

• 1980 Richard Chase, the so-called Dracula Killer of Sacramento, California, commits suicide in prison.

• 1992  Andrei Chikatilo of Rostov, Russia, is sentenced to death after killing and vampirizing some 55 people.

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