Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. In the past capital punishment was practiced by most societies and death penalty is still a legal form of punishment in 58 states worldwide. Ancient forms of capital punishment included gruesome practices that were used not only as common methods of death penalty, but were also employed for torture. Today this type of punishment is effectuated according to state authorized methods. Learn more about ancient and contemporary methods of capital punishment in this book.