In ancient Europe, embalming dead bodies was less common. The earliest known preserved bodies in Europe are about 5000 years old. These bodies were covered in cinnabar to preserve them. They were found in Osorno, Spain. Embalming dead bodies was unusual in Europe up to the time of the Roman Empire.
Archaeologists have found preserved bodies in China from the time of the Han dynasty (206 BCE – 220 ACE). Nobody knows how these bodies were preserved.
By about 500 ACE, knowledge about preserving bodies had spread from ancient cultures, and embalming became much more common in Europe. This happened partly because science and medicine were developing, and scientists needed to dissect dead bodies to learn more about the human body. If bodies were not preserved, they would decay right away, and scientists could not dissect them or keep them for other scientists to learn from.
The English physician William Harvey created the modern method of embalming in the 17th century. This method involves injecting chemicals into a dead body's arteries to keep the body from decaying.
Up until the middle of the 18th century, embalming was used mostly in science and medicine. However, in the mid-18th century, the Scottish surgeon William Hunter used Harvey's methods to preserve bodies in morgues. His brother, John Hunter, was the first to advertise embalming to regular people who wanted to see their loved ones' bodies preserved after death.
In the 19th century, many people became more interested in embalming dead friends and relatives. For example, sometimes a person might want to be buried at a far-away place. However, first, the people who cared about them would want to see their body and pay their last respects to that person. They could do this if the body was embalmed, because the body would not decay.
In the United States, embalming became very common during the time of the Civil War. This happened because many people died far from home while fighting in the war. Their bodies needed to be returned home to be buried, and embalming kept their bodies from decaying during these long trips. When President Abraham Lincoln was killed, embalming allowed his body to be sent home to be buried. This made people in the United States more aware about embalming.
In the past, if a person died from an infectious disease, their body would be buried very quickly to prevent the disease from spreading. Embalming became more common as a way to keep diseases from spreading.
By the mid-19th century, people began to run businesses that provided funerals and burials. At that time, the people who ran these businesses were called undertakers. (Now they are called funeral directors.) These people began to use embalming methods regularly, instead of using older methods like packing bodies in ice.
Until the early 20th century, arsenic was often used to embalm bodies. Eventually it was replaced by other chemicals that work better and are less poisonous. In 1867, the German chemist August Wilhelm von Hofmann discovered formaldehyde. Scientists soon realized that this chemical worked very well to preserve dead bodies. Soon formaldehyde replaced other chemicals as the most common chemical used to embalm bodies.
In the United States and the Western world, embalming is now very common. Usually, there are a few steps to embalming:
Usually, embalming takes a few hours.
Embalming does not keep a body from decaying forever. It is meant to preserve a dead person's body for a little while. This allows people to see the body during funeral services, and allows bodies to be shipped to far-away places to be buried. However, no matter what type of embalming is used, the body will eventually decompose.
Different religions have many different ideas about embalming. For example, these religious usually allow embalming:
Some religions, like some Neopagan religions, discourage embalming, but do not forbid it.
Some religions say that embalming is never allowed. These religions include:
Taxidermy
Taxidermy (which comes from the Greek word for "the arrangement of skin") is act of taking the skin of an animals and preserving it, by putting it on a fake body. If you perform taxidermy, you taxiderm. Taxidermed animals can be mounted and put on display, sometimes in a museum or a home. People who taxidermy animals are called taxidermists. Many hunters and fishermen taxidermine the animals they catch and kill for trophies. Ones that are on display in museums are used to make dioramas and for educational purposes. Some people taxiderm their pets and other street animals.
Guantanamo Bay Naval Base
Guantanamo Bay is a bay in the south of the island of Cuba. Part of it is controlled by the United States. They took control of it in 1903, under a treaty between the United States and Cuba. The current government of Cuba does not see this treaty as legal. They say it violates International law (more specifically, the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties of 1969).
The southern part of the bay is surrounded by a navy station of the United States. The name of the station (or base) is sometimes shortened to GTMO, called "Gitmo". The mission of this station is to act to prevent terrorism, help people who are fleeing Cuba and stop drug crime.
This base is also now used as a place to keep people captured by American forces from Afghanistan and Iraq. Also some prisoners were taken from other countries, like Britain and France. Some people say that these people do not get the rights that they should get as prisoners of war under the Geneva Conventions. One reason that they are there may be that the laws of the United States do not apply to them. According to some well-known human rights groups, some prisoners have been tortured and others may have been badly treated according the FBI Inquiry. This has also been reported by some Europeans who were taken by CIA "torture flights" and have now been released.
There is a lot of argument about Guantanamo Bay. This camp is a navy base and would sometimes hold people who had escaped from the Cuban government by sea. Now it also has a prison for people who oppose the United States, including some soldiers. Some people have called it a concentration camp. George W. Bush has said that it is sometimes used for prisoners of war, but many human rights groups accuse America of keeping people from countries they are not at war with. This was shown to be sometimes true when British prisoners were returned home in 2003.
This camp may be used for prisoners who are seen as terrorists by the United States. These people are detained because there is not enough evidence to give them a trial in a court. About 300 to 400 men are in this prison. They are almost all Muslims who are said to have attacked American troops. Some of these people were captured during the war in Afghanistan. Some were taken by force from other countries. There has been some evidence of torture taking place at the camp. Some prisoners have tried to kill themselves. Others have been on hunger strike, where they refuse to eat. These prisoners are not forced to work, but they have not been given fair trials.
There is now some work starting to bring Guantanamo prisoners to some justice. Some people have been sent back to their home countries, some have been sent to other countries. Some people who were shown to not be terrorists have then been released by their governments, some people are now in prison in their home countries. Some Uighur people from China have been sent to Albania, possibly because China did not want them back.
Munich U-Bahn
The Munich U-Bahn is an underground railway network in the city of Munich, Germany. It is run by the "Münchner Verkehrsgesellschaft", or MVG for short. It has 6 lines and has a network of 103,1 km (64,1 miles) and has exactly 100 stations. Only one line, the U6 crosses the city border in Garching.
There are currently 7 lines:
The trains can go 80 km/h, which is the fastest in Germany.