What was Happening 100 Years Ago in 1913?

1913 was only a year away from WWI – are we on the brink of a similar catastrophe? Currently we have 12 international and 27 intrastate armed-conflicts going on.

One thing has definitely changed in the past 100 years. In 1913, the West was The World: everywhere else was seen as backward sources of raw materials and ground for exploration/exploitation. In 2013, the West is in decline and many ancient civilizations are recovering to take their rightful places. The world is becoming a multipolar world of Facebook users.

Photo source: 

Many events in 1913 shaped the lives of people for generations. Some of these events were continuations of a long chain of events, while others were spontaneous game-changers.

Let’s take a look at what was happening in 1913 around the world:

Russia:

• The Romanov dynasty is busy celebrating their 300^th anniversary, blissfully unaware that in about 1300 days it’s game over for them. 100 years later, the Russian Orthodox Church sanctifies the Romanov family.

Photo source: 

• Russia has not yet recovered from its dismal performance at 1912 Olympics at Stockholm. 159 competitors (all men) got 0 gold, 2 silver and 3 bronze (total 5) medals compared to 9 gold, 8 silver and 9 bronze (total 26 medals) of tiny Finland (under Russia then). It took Russia 40 years to recover and compete in the 1952 Helsinki Olympics (as Soviet Union) bagging 71 medals. In 2012 London Olympics, Russia got 82 medals (24 gold, 26 silver and 32 bronze) while Finland grumbled with 0 gold, 1 silver and 2 bronze.

Photo source:

• Russia is the world’s largest food exporter. In 100 years Russia drops to 157^th rank.
• Russia’s foreign debt to GNP ratio was 40% in 1913. It is 8% compared to 105.7% of USA in 2012. 

China

• First elections for the National Assembly held. 4-6% of the population were registered as voters. Kuomintang (the Nationalist) party led by Song Jiaoren won majority. Song was promptly assassinated on March 1913, probably machinated by the president Yuan Shikai, who two years later would become the unpopular and weak Great Emperor of China.
• Yuan Shikai borrows £25 million without parliamentary approval to prepare for civil war against the Kuomintang and nationalizes railroads (some owned by foreign capital). 100 years on USA owes $ 1.3 trillion to China.

Photo source: 

• Chinese foreign debt is a mindboggling $835 million = $19.417 trillion in today’s money. Compared to $ 16.440 trillion foreign debt of USA today.
• Britain agrees to end opium exports from India (which it doesn’t, as opium accounted for about 20% of British India’s revenues). China under Mao finally got rid of this opium addiction.  100 years later Chinese people are very busy getting addicted to other things.

Mexico

• The Mexican Revolution continues. 75 presidents in 55 years since independence (1821) – President Madero and vice president Suárez are assassinated. The Mexican public believe that the president was betrayed with the US ambassador’s help. A tradition is born: Everything that goes wrong is promptly blamed on US involvement.

Photo source:

• Mexico becomes the third largest oil producing country in the world, after USA and Russia. 60% of production is owned by Englishman, Sir Weetman Pearson’s company (Viscount Cowdray). 100 years on Pemex, fully owned by Mexico government, is the world’s second largest non-publicly listed company with a monopoly of gas stations in Mexico.

India

• Rabindranath Tagore (Thakur), the first Asian, gets the Nobel Prize for literature, previously given only to Europeans (no American got it before 1930, Sinclair Lewis). He was awarded this prize as an “Anglo-Indian” (which he definitely wasn’t!). The Nobel committee reasoning: 

• “Tagore has been hailed from various quarters as a new and admirable master of that poetic art which has been a never-failing concomitant of the expansion of British civilisation ever since the days of Queen Elizabeth.” 

Photo source:

• The first Indian 40 minute movie Raja Harshchandra released. In 100 years, the Indian film industry becomes the largest in the world.  

Photo source: 

• IT milestone: The first automatic telephone exchange in Shimla, India with a 700 lines capacity (939 million users in 2012), established. Indians perfect the art of shouting in a loud trunk-call voice when speaking on the telephone.
• Enrolment rate for primary school in 1913 is 2.38% in India compared to 3.77% Russia, 8.94% Sri Lanka, 13.07% Japan. 100 years on the rate is 92% but 25% of teaching positions in India are vacant.
• 0.49% of Indians enrolled in secondary schools compared to 0.32% in France and 0.62% in England. In 2012, the rate is 59% but 57% of Indian college professors lack either a master’s or PhD degree.
• Literacy about 10% (compared to full literacy in Japan) becomes 74.4% in 100 years.

UK

• Half of the entire global stock of foreign direct investment is owned and managed by British entrepreneurs, exploiting natural resources and infrastructure by using small, free-standing rather than fully integrated companies. UK is in the 18^th position by 2010. 
• First nationwide film censor The British Board of Film Censors began operating. Nowadays many older people wish they’d censor more.

Photo source:

• The value of British overseas investments 49% of net national wealth. 100 years on it is 65%.
• Stainless Steel is invented by Harry Brearley in Sheffield. 100 years on, no one can imagine a world without it.
• House of Commons rejects women's right to vote. Suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst sentenced to three years of penal servitude for demanding votes for women: Women over 30 would get voting rights only in 1918. In 2011, 400 000 people (half of them women) march for an alternative to the current socio-economic system.

Photo source: 

• The first woman magistrate Miss Emily Dawson appointed in London: Only in 2004, is Britain’s first Asian woman magistrate Revinder Johal appointed.
• Margaret Cousins (Irish), suffragette, released form Tullamore Gaols: migrates to India and becomes India’s first woman magistrate in 1922. She was thrown again to prison in 1932 for protesting against the law curtailing free speech in India. The Indians actually never stopped talking.

France

• The Mona Lisa is returned to France by Italy after Vincenzo Peruggia was caught trying to sell it to the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. Mona Lisa was displayed all over Italy until 30.12.1913. Art and cultural property crime is a $6 billion industry nowadays with major government and international agencies fighting against it. 

Photo source:

• Suicide rate in France is 5.46 per 100 000. In 100 years it grows to the third highest figure in non-former Eastern bloc Europe (14.6 in 2010: double that of Britain and USA)
• Hardly any car thefts in France, grows to the third highest car theft rate in the world in 100 years with 301, 539 thefts in 2010.

Photo source: 

USA

• The 16^th Amendment to the constitution allows the Federal government to impose and collect income taxes. 100 years later a new word Taxmageddon is coined as government aims to make every household pay an extra $3,446 annually and collect  $536 billion to stem the deficit tsunami  
• The world’s largest railway station, New York’s Grand Central Terminal is reopened. In 100 years, USA becomes the backwater of railroads compared to Japan, China and other countries.
• The Woman Suffrage Parade of 1913 is led by Inez Milholland riding on a white horse, with nine bands, four mounted brigades and celebrities like Helen Keller. Women gained the right to vote in national elections in 1920 (New Zealand in 1893 and Saudi Arabia not yet in 2013). Sarah Palin almost became Vice President in 2008.

Photo source: 

• Battle of Bud Bagsak – The Moro people, wielding spears and Kampilan Swords in the Philippines, including women and children are all killed by US troops led by General “Black Jack” Pershing. “Rather than impose a democratic system for which the people were unprepared, General Wood crafted a paternal system of government”. In 100 years the language would change to include terms like regime change, weapon of mass destruction, war on terrorism, enemy combatant, authorization for use of military force against terrorists, conditional detention etc.

Photo source: 

• The Federal Reserve System as the central banking system is created with three key objectives for monetary policy—maximum employment, stable prices, and moderate long-term interest rates: Very good dreams still to be realized 100 years later.

Photo source: Dromedary with one hump in Camel cigarette pack

• Camel cigarettes are introduced. For the first half of the century it actually had a picture of a dromedary (with two humps) on the pack, which has now become a camel with one hump. It should be the opposite but no one really cares.

Photo source: Camel cigarette pack with two humps

•  The hottest temperature ever recorded 134 °F (~56.7 °C) in Death Valley, California. Global warming becomes a hot topic 100 years later.

South Africa

• Blacks are forbidden by the parliament of South Africa from owning or buying land from whites. 100 years later white poverty is blamed on Affirmative action reserving 80% of jobs for blacks and 450, 000 whites (10% of white population) live below poverty level. 
• Mohandas Gandhi is arrested while leading a march of Indian miners. He will be arrested many times before he is killed in 1948. 100 years later, Indians have to commit serious crimes to get arrested in South Africa and do not become a Mahatma in India after getting arrested.

Photo source:

Uruguay

• The Uruguayan Air Force is founded. They have not attacked anyone since.

Predictions About the Future Made in 1913 

Photo source

London’s lord mayor, Sir Vansittart Bowater was spot on with his predictions in 1913: 

• A horse will excite far more wonder and curiosity in London city than an aeroplane or a dirigible flying over St. Paul does today
• The drone of great airships, each carrying perhaps many hundreds of passengers, will also probably be heard across both the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans
• The channel tunnel scheme may be a commonplace of actuality, with train services running every few minutes direct from London to Paris

NASA scientist James Hansen predicted in 1988 that global temperature rise would be proportional to the rise in CO2 emissions. This is off by 150% in 2011.

Photo source

Another prediction from Scientific American editor Waldemar Kaempfert, in 1913:

• "Over [future] cities the aerial sentry or policeman will be found. A thousand aeroplanes flying to the opera must be kept in line and each allowed to alight upon the roof of the auditorium in its proper turn."


12 year old Edgar Codling of Hillington, Norfolk, UK was very much a visionary:

• Aeroplanes will be seen floating in the air and would be as common as motorcars. They will be used of business and enjoyment too. 

Photo source: 

US government National Intelligence Council (NIC) in 1997 was not that successful:

• “The next 15 years will witness the transformation of North Korea and resulting elimination of military tensions on the peninsula”. 

Additional Sources:

The Transition in Eastern Europe, Volume 1. Olivier Jean Blanchard, Kenneth A. Froot, and Jeffrey D. Sachs, editors. University of Chicago Press, 1994

Different Ways of Legally Disposing of Dead Bodies?

What is the most common method of disposing of a dead body?

No, I’m not talking about how to dispose of the dead body after someone is murdered. If you are planning to get rid of someone or already have done so, this post may not help you, I’m sorry! Criminals have their very own ways in such practical matters.

I am talking about what are the standard and legal methods of dealing with corpses in everyday life in a peace scenario: people dying of natural causes, illnesses and accidents etc.

Photo source: 

We would tend to assume that the custom prevalent in our own culture is followed by everyone, but it is not so. Wartimes and natural disasters like tsunamis or earthquakes with thousands of victims are very special cases in all cultures but peacetime customs differ.

Photo source:

What Are The Most Common Methods of Corpse Disposal in Natural Deaths?

A surprising variety of methods are used to dispose of dead corpses. 

Photo source: 

Some of the most common methods for disposing of dead bodies are:

• Burial or inhumation: Very common method since times immemorial. Chimpanzees and elephants also cover their dead with leaves and branches. Religious traditions dictate how the corpse is buried: facing Mecca for Muslims and aligned East-West for some forms of Christianity.
• Cremation: either in an electric chamber or on a funeral pyre with lots of wood.
• Go out with a Bang! Exploded into the sky with fireworks. Choose your display – a big and noisy display in the night sky or just a lonely rocket carrying your ashes and streaking into the final frontier. For about £2000 in the UK, the company Heavens Above Fireworks shows how to choose.  

Photo source:

• Become a diamond – Companies like LifeGem take your carbon remains and crush them under intense pressure into small gemstones for a loved one to wear. A one-carat diamond would be around $ 15,000. 

Photo source:

• Dissolution – e.g. in acid or a solution of lye, which is then disposed as liquid. This method is claimed to be more environmentally friendly than cremation or burial. But does indeed have a connotation of being flushed down the drain! No mortuary homes offer this service but it is used to dispose of cadavers by e.g., the Mayo Clinic and the University of Florida in Gainesville. 

Photo source:

• Disposal by exposure – The ultimate recycling method and act of compassion in feeding the preying birds with one’s dead corpse: e.g. Jhator or Tibetan Sky Burial and in the Dakhma/Dokhma or Cheel Ghar or Parsi Towers of Silence. Remains of such practices can also be found in Göbekli Tepe (14 000 years ago) and Stonehenge (6500 years ago).

Photo source: 

• Promession – A special Swedish freeze-drying technique to reduce the body to a powder substance. Within a week of death the body is submerged in liquid nitrogen (ultra cold). This removes all water (70% of body weight). Then vibrations reduce the brittle body to a powder. Illegal in USA.

Photo source:

• Resomation – The body dissolves into its chemical components. The corpse is placed in a silk bag and put into a machine with water and potassium hydroxide and heated with high pressure. The end result is some powder and green-brown liquid. 

• Burial at sea e.g. made famous or notorious by the case of Osama Bin Laden’s corpse being buried at sea.

Photo source:

• Space Burial – some notable examples are Gene Roddenberry, the creator of Star Trek; Timothy Leary, the “Turn on, tune in, drop out” LSD advocate.

Photo source:

• Moon Burial – Only one person has had that honour. Dr Eugene Shoemaker, astronomer and the co-discoverer of the Comet Shoemaker-Levy was buried (his ashes) on the moon on 31.7.1999. A company called Celestis can do similar things for you, but expect a hefty bill.

Photo source:

Methods of Corpse Preservation Used Nowadays

The legal rights of the people taking care of the deceased's corpse are usually protected by law. Here is a link to the laws in the UK, Australia and in USA.

Some people and cultures are very keen to preserve the dead corpse, rather than take the ‘out of sight’ approach. Here are some common methods utilised:

• Cryonics – Companies like Alcor Life Extension will vitrify (not freeze) you and keep you ice-free at -124°C until there is a cure for your particular ailment in the distant future. Very expensive. 

Photo source:

• Mummification – Very common among Egyptian and Inca royals, but not so common nowadays.  A company called Summum in Salt Lake City, Utah still does mummification. The embalmed mummies in e.g., Egypt are not favoured for radiocarbon dating but the natural ones are. The oldest known natural mummy is the 6000 year-old Torres Aparico head from Quebrada, Argentina found in 1936. The oldest known artificial mummy is a child chinchorro mummy from 5050 BC in Camarones Valley, Chile. 

Photo source:

• Permanent storage in a mausoleum or tomb. This can be the whole body after embalming or only the ashes e.g. Lenin’s or Mao Ze Dong’s mausoleums or ashes kept in family tombs like that of Eva Peron.
• Stuffing or Taxidermy – more common in literature or films than real life. E.g., Norman Bates’s hobby in Psycho is taxidermy or stuffing the remains of his dead mother. Jeremy Bentham, the English philosopher, one of the most forward thinking people in his generation (advocating individual and economic freedom, the separation of church from the state, equal rights and rights to divorce for women, decriminalising homosexual acts etc.) had his body dissected for a public anatomy lecture and his skeleton and head stuffed wearing his clothes (after he died in 1832, of course!)

Photo source:

• Plastination – is the method of replacing the water and fat in human parts being replaced by plastic. This produces specimens that be touched and they do not smell or decay. In July 2012, more than 13,300 people all over the world have donated their bodies. If you plan to donate your body to plastination here’s how. 

Photo source:

Hollywood Movie Methods of Dead Body Disposal

Hollywood has its own ways of disposing of the dead bodies. Often these are people killed by criminals, by law enforcement agents and other 'good guys' or as collateral damage.

Photo source:

• Cleanup crew - Professionals come and take care of everything and no details are necessary. e.g. Mafia or Men in Black.
• Dissolve in Acid - The mafia call it the 'White shotgun' or Lupara Bianca method. These 'acids' dissolve everything, however, often leaving the bare bones. The 'acids' are very strong and even a drop falling on the floor goes through the floor to the next floor and even deeper.
• Viking Funeral - A large pyre of wood burns the body or bodies spectacularly. Used e.g. in The Return of the Jedi.

Photo source:

• Burial at Sea - The body is ceremoniously dumped into the sea, e.g. in The Godfather or The Enemy Below
• Eating the Body - Celebrities like Hannibal Lecter or people in many other movies enjoy eating human bodies and use it as a method of disposal, e.g. in Tooth and Nail (2007), The Road.
• Cement Shoes - The dead bodies are attached to a heavy weight and dropped in the sea or deep waters for the fish to eat. Often used in mafia movies. This method has been used in real life too in the notorious Swedish Ståplats i Nybroviken case (Standing Place at Nybroviken Bay) when a murdered corpse was found in 1966 at Nybroviken Bay, Stockholm in a standing position. 
• Chopping the body in pieces - This is the Dexter method, named after the serial. The body is chopped into small pieces, then either ground into mulch to be put into the earth, fed to the chicken or fishes or into dumps.
• Hiding the body in closets - The John Christie method e.g., 10 Rillington PLace (1971) is used by serial killers.

Photo source:

Professional Skills - How to Study About Disposing Dead Corpses

The study of dead bodies and especially how to deal with them is Mortuary Science. One can study it in a university in 30 states and train to become a mortician or funeral director in USA.

Mortuary Science is a tough discipline and students report being shunned by people and their only friends are fellow mortuary science students. This line of studies is definitely not for too sensitive people. 

• Dropout rate is very high due to the emotional stress and the risks of infections are very high (Cahill, 1999).

Photo source:

In Which Countries are People Cremated the Most?

So, we are back to our first question - What is the most common method of disposing of a dead body? 

Photo source:

Yes, it’s cremation. Here are some interesting statistics about the cremation method of corpse disposal:

• The country with the highest cremation rate is Japan with 99.94% of all dead corpses in 1545 crematoria in 2010.
• The most number of people cremated is in China 4.5 million out of 9.3 million deaths in 2008 (48.50% cremation rate) cremated in 1724 crematoria. India is probably the second.
• The fastest growth has been in Canada: Cremation rate grew from 5.89% in 1970 to 68.4% in 2009 with 90% in Victoria and UK: 5 new crematoria come up every year and the national cremation rate has grown from 34.7% to 74.4% in 2011 Source: 

• Iceland has 1 crematorium to cremate 20.58% of all corpses compared to the 1 crematorium in Romania, which cremates 0.30% of all corpses there 
• Protestant Denmark (32 crematoria) and Sweden (66 crematoria) cremate 77.34% and 76.86% while neighbouring Norway (24 crematoria) cremate 35.33% and Finland (22 crematoria) cremated 41.47% in 2010. A Finnish Lutheran priest explained that bodies being buried in a full size coffin has a traditional significance in Finland and being cremated and the ashes placed in a small urn does not fulfil a similar symbolic role.
• In USA, with 2113 crematoria, the cremation rate grew to 40.62% in 2009. In high Church-attendance states like Mississippi the rate is 13.84% while in low-attendance rate Nevada, it is 73.46%. The Roman Catholic Church lifted its ban on cremations only in 1963 and only in the 1990s allowed cremated remains at Catholic funerals.

Photo source:

Here is a chart with percentage of cremations correlated with population density or people living per square kilometre.

Source: The Economist  

Incredible Facts About Cremation

Yes, there are some funny facts about the cremation process.

• Silicone breast implants are often removed before cremation otherwise they stick to the cremains (the ashes)
•  Pacemakers with lithium batteries are removed because they explode during cremation
• Modern crematories don’t actually expose the corpse to flames, the intense heat reduces the body to ashes in 2 hours at 760- 870 degrees centigrade
• Costs of a cremation have grown. In 1960 it was $708 and in 2009 it was $5, 000 compared to $8,500 for a burial funeral 
• It is illegal in USA to scatter cremains or ashes in public parks, national parks or over an inland body of water less than 3 miles off shore.
• Turn your beloved departed into a glass orb or a touchstone for about $315 (if you can’t afford the diamond option). 
• Become an hourglass, which people you leave behind can stare at and learn to use their time well. For $400 In The Light Urns can do that to you.   
• Remember your departed as his/her hobby, be it a football or a jazz trumpet: 

Photo source:

·    

Here are some emergency guidelines for disposing of dead bodies, both officially and errm, unofficially (Disclaimer: At Your Own Risk: Everyone connected with this blog has washed his/her hands off). 

• For disposal of dead bodies in emergencies from the WorldHealth Organization. 
• Here’s another unofficial take on the same topic. 

P.S. There are enough dead bodies and corpses in the world. Please don't produce any more unnecessarily! 
Let people live as long as they live!

Sources: 
Cahill, Spencer E. “Emotional Capital and Professional Socialization: The Case of Mortuary Science.” Social Psychology Quarterly, Vol. 62, No. 2, Special Issue: Qualitative Contributions to Social Psychology. (Jun., 1999), pp. 101–116.