chinese foot binding essays

chinese foot binding essays As I read the newspaper story, my eyes widen with every word, According to the National Institute of Mental Health there are over 5 million people in the United States suffering with eating disorders. 1% of all North American teenagers have eating disorders. 10% of these teenagers will die. People struggling with anorexia are among those whose health are at great risk...( www.planet-therapy.com) And then I see a picture of a young girl, nothing but bones and skin, looking wasted away. I ask myself, What wont people do for beauty? They say, True beauty comes from within. However true this statement may be, in almost every society throughout history, women have been required to undergo major and often painful physical alterations in the name of beauty and social status. Perhaps one of the most agonizing beatifications in all of history is the Chinese tradition of foot binding. Foot binding is an ancient tradition that involves the reshaping of the womans feet to achieve a smaller foot. Accompanied by unimaginable pain and crippling limitations, Chinese foot binding is a testament to how far humans will go to be beautiful. As with most other beautification processes, such as ear piercing or tattooing, Chinese foot binding has significant cultural and social implications. In addition, using modern technology, we can also see the physiological effects of foot binding. Foot binding began in the late T'ang Dynasty (618-906) and it gradually spread through the upper class during the Song Dynasty (960-1297). During the Ming period (1368-1644) and the Ching Dynasty (1644-1911) the custom of foot binding spread through the overwhelming majority of the Chinese population (Mo-chn, 65). It began with the emperor Li Yu of the Tang Dynasty who, acting on his fetish for small feet, instructed his favorite concubine, Lovely Maiden, to bind her feet in silk cloth in ord...

September Calendar of Famous Inventions and Birthdays

September Calendar of Famous Inventions and Birthdays From the first-known copyright that was granted in Venice in 1486 to the publishing of the first book on the Gutenberg printing press, September is a historically significant month in many ways, including famous birthdays like  Michael Faraday, the inventor of the electric motor. Whether youre looking for what happened on this day in history or trying to find famous figures who share your September birthday, plenty of great things happened in September. Many of the people and inventions on the list below are science and technology-based, but a few influential pop culture icons have been thrown into the mix, too. Patents, Trademarks, and Copyrights Explore the patents, trademarks, and copyrights that were granted on each day throughout the month of September to find what famous invention shares your birthday. The candlestick, for instance, was patented on September 8, 1868, by William Hinds while the hand controller video game was patented on September 29, 1998,   September 1 1486: The first known copyright was granted in Venice. September 2 1992: The Southern California Gas Company purchased the first motor vehicles powered by natural gas. September 3 1940: A patent for the production of diuretics was obtained by Bockmuhl, Middendorf, and Fritzsche. September 4 1888:  George Eastman patented the roll film camera for Kodak. September 5 1787: The constitutional clause concerning patents and copyrights was adopted by the Constitutional Convention in 1787. September 6 1988: The Combined Cap and Baseball Mitt Patent Number 4,768,232 was granted. September 7 1948: Patent Number 2,448,908 was granted to Louis Parker for a television receiver. His intercarrier sound system is now used in all television receivers in the world, and without it, TV receivers would not work as well and would be more costly. September 8 1868: William Hinds patented a candlestick.1994: Microsoft gave Windows 95 its new name. Previously, the operating system had been referred to by its code name of Chicago. September 9 1886: Ten countries, not including the U.S., joined the Berne Convention for the protection of literary and artistic works. September 10 1891: The song Ta-Ra-Ra-Boom-Der-E by Henry J. Sayers was registered.1977: Hamida Djandoubi, a Tunisian immigrant and convicted murderer, became the last person to date executed by the guillotine. September 11 1900: A motor vehicle patent was granted to Francis and Freelan Stanley. September 12 1961: Patent Number 3,000,000 was granted to Kenneth Eldredge for an automatic reading system for utilities. September 13 1870: Patent Number 107,304 was granted to Daniel C. Stillson for the improved monkey wrench. September 14 1993: The Simpsons television show was registered by Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. September 15 1968:  An Wang obtained a patent for a calculating apparatus, a basic component of computer technology. September 16 1857: The words and music to the famous Christmas song Jingle Bells were registered by Oliver Ditson and Company under the title One Horse Open Sleigh. September 17 1918: Elmer Sperry received a patent for the gyrocompass, essential to modern ship navigation. September 18 1915: Louisa May Alcotts book  Little Women (first published October 3, 1868) was registered.1984: Software Arts and VisiCorp settled their lawsuit over VisiCalc, the first spreadsheet program. VisiCalc, invented in 1979, was the first hot-selling software product for the personal computer. September 19 1876: Melville Bissell patented a carpet sweeper. September 20 1938: Patent Number 2,130,948 was granted for synthetic fiber (nylon) to Wallace Carothers. September 21 1993: A patent for Baseball Batting Apparatus, Patent Number 5,246,226, was granted. September 22 1992: The Poolside Basketball Game was granted Patent Number 5,149,086. September 23 1930: Johannes Ostermeier was issued a patent for the flash bulb used in photography. September 24 1877: Fire destroyed many models in the Patent Office, but the important records were saved.1852: A new invention, the dirigible or airship, was first demonstrated. September 25 1959: The song Do-Re-Mi from the Sound of Music by Rodger and Hammerstein was registered.1956: The first transatlantic telephone cable went into operation. September 26 1961: The patent for an aerial capsule (satellite) emergency separation device was obtained by Maxime Faget and Andre Meyer. September 27 1977: Anacleto Montero Sanchez received a patent for a hypodermic syringe. September 28 1979: The pilot episode of the TV series M*A*S*H was registered. September 29 1998: A hand controller for a video game was patented as Design Patent Number 398,938. September 30 1997: A roller skate was invented by Hui-Chin from Taiwan and received Patent Number 5,671,931.1452: The first book was published in Johann Gutenbergs printing press: The  Bible. September Birthdays From the birth of Ferdinand Porsche to that of the inventor of the first automobile, Nicolas Joseph Cugnot, September is the birth month of many famous scientists, inventors, and artists of all varieties. Find your September birthday twin and discover how their lives works helped change the world. September 1 1856: Sergei Winogradsky was a noted Russian scientist  who pioneered the cycle-of-life concept. September 2 1850: Woldemar Voigt was a noted German physicist  who developed the Voigt transformation in mathematical physics.1853: Wilhelm Ostwald was a German physical chemist who won the Nobel Prize in 1909.1877: Frederick Soddy was a British chemist who won the Nobel Prize  for his work on radioactivity due to the transmutation of elements.1936: Andrew Grove was an American computer chip manufacturer. September 3 1875: Ferdinand Porsche was a German car inventor who designed the Porsche and Volkswagen cars.1905: Carl David Anderson was an American physicist who won the 1936 Nobel Prize  for  Physics for his discovery of  positron.1938: Ryoji Noyori was Japanese chemist and a Nobel Prize winner  in 2001 for the study of chirally catalyzed hydrogenations. September 4 1848:  Lewis H. Latimer  was an American inventor who drafted the patent drawings for Alexander Graham Bells application for the telephone, worked for Thomas Edison, and invented an electric lamp.1904:  Julian Hill  was a noted chemist who helped develop nylon.1913: Stanford Moore was an American biochemist who won the Nobel Prize in 1977.1934: Clive Granger was a Welsh economist and Nobel Prize  winner  for his contributions to non-linear time series. September 5 1787: Franà §ois Sulpice Beudant was a French geologist who studied crystallization. September 6 1732: Johan Wilcke was a noted Swedish physicist.1766: John Dalton was a British physicist who developed the atomic theory of matter.1876: John Macleod was a Canadian physiologist who won the Nobel Prize in 1923.1892: Edward V. Appleton was a noted British physicist who pioneered  radiophysics.1939: Susumu Tonegawa is a Japanese molecular biologist who won the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1987 for his discovery of the genetic mechanism that produces antibody diversity.1943: Richard Roberts was a British biochemist who won a Nobel Prize. September 7 1737:  Luigi Galvani  was a noted Italian physicist who made studies of the anatomy.1829: August Kekule von Stradonitz discovered the benzene ring.1836: August Toepler was a noted German physicist who experimented with electrostatics.1914: James Van Allen was an American physicist who discovered the Van Allen radiation belts.1917: John Cornforth was an Australian chemist who won the Nobel Prize. September 8 1888: Louis Zimmer was a famous Flemish  clockmaker.1918: Derek Barton was a British chemist who won a Nobel Prize in 1969. September 9 1941: Dennis Ritchie was a noted American computer scientist who created the  C programming language and the Unix operating system. September 10 1624: Thomas Sydenham was a noted English physician.1892: Arthur Compton was a noted American physicist  who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1927 for his 1923 discovery of the Compton effect of electromagnetic radiation.1898:  Waldo Semon  was an American inventor who invented vinyl.1941:  Gunpei Yokoi  is a Japanese inventor and video game designer for  Nintendo. September  11 1798: Franz Ernst Neumann was a noted German professor of mineralogy and physics who was an early researcher of optics.1816:  Carl Zeiss  was a German scientist and optician known for the lens manufacturing company he founded called Carl Zeiss.1877: Feliks Dzjerzjinski was the Lithuanian founder of the KGB.1894: Carl Shipp Marvel was an American polymer chemist who worked with temperature-resistant polymers called polybenzimidazoles. Marvel won the first ACS Award in Polymer Chemistry in 1964, the Priestley Medal in 1956, and the Perkin Medal in 1965. September 12 1818:  Richard Gatling  was the American inventor of a hand-cranked machine gun.1897: Irene Joliot-Curie was the daughter of Marie Curie, who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1935 for the synthesis of new radioactive elements. September 13 1755:  Oliver Evans  invented a high-pressure steam engine.1857:  Milton S. Hershey  was a famous chocolate manufacturer who started the Hershey candy company.1886: Sir Robert Robinson won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1947 for his researches in organic chemistry, and he also worked for the Shell Chemical Company.1887: Leopold Ruzicka won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1939 for his studies of natural substances, and he invented many of the scents for various perfumes. September 14 1698: Charles Francois de Cisternay DuFay was a French chemist who studied the force of repulsion, noting that most things could be electrified just by rubbing  them  and that materials conduct better when wet.1849: Ivan Pavlov was a Russian physiologist known for Pavlovian responses; he won the Nobel Prize in 1904.1887: Karl Taylor Compton was an American physicist and atomic bomb scientist. September 15 1852:  Jan Matzeliger  invented the shoe-lacing  machine.1929: Murray Gell-Mann was the first physicist to predict quarks. September 16 1893: Albert Szent-Gyorgyi was a Hungarian physiologist who won the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1937 for discovering vitamin C and the components and reactions of the citric acid cycle. September 17 1857: Konstantin Tsiolkovsky was a pioneer in  rocket and space research.1882: Anton H. Blaauw was a Dutch botanist who wrote The Perception of Light. September 18 1907: Edwin M. McMillian won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1951 for discovering plutonium. He also had the idea for phase stability, which led to the development of the  synchrotron  and synchro-cyclotron. September 19 1902: James Van Alen invented the Simplified Scoring System for tennis. September 20 1842: James Dewar was a British chemist and physicist who invented the Dewar flask or thermos (1892) and co-invented a smokeless gunpowder called cordite (1889). September 21 1832: Louis Paul Cailletet was the French physicist and inventor who was the first to liquefy oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, and air. September 22 1791:  Michael Faraday  was a British physicist and chemist who is best known for his discoveries of electromagnetic induction and the laws of electrolysis. His biggest breakthrough in electricity was his invention of the electric motor. September 23 1915:  John Sheehan  invented a method for the synthesis of penicillin. September 24 1870:  Georges Claude  was the French inventor of neon light. September 25 1725:  Nicolas Joseph Cugnot  invented the first automobile.1832: William Le Baron Jenney was the American architect considered the father of the skyscraper.1866: Thomas H. Morgan won the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1933 for  discoveries  that defined  the role that the chromosome plays in heredity.   September 26 1754: Joseph Louis Proust was a French chemist best known  for his research work on the steadiness of composition of chemical compounds.1886: Archibald B. Hill was an English physiologist and pioneer of biophysics and operations research who won the 1922 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his elucidation of the production of heat and mechanical work in muscles. September 27 1913: Albert Ellis was an American psychologist who invented rational emotive behavior therapy.1925: Patrick Steptoe was the scientist who perfected in vitro fertilization. September 28 1852: Henri Moissan won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1906.1925: Seymour Cray was the inventor of the Cray I  supercomputer. September 29 1925: Paul MacCready was an American engineer who created the first human-powered flying machines and the first solar-powered aircraft to make sustained flights.   September 30 1802: Antoine J.  Ballard  was a French chemist who discovered bromine.1939: Jean-Marie P. Lehn is a French chemist who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1987 for synthesizing cryptands.1943: Johann Deisenhofer is a biochemist who won the Nobel Prize  for  Chemistry in 1988 for determining the first crystal structure of a membrane protein.