My Science School

          The primitive man who lived in caves had to make his way through rocks. To protect his feet he probably covered them with bags of grass, strips of animal hide or even flat pieces of wood. These were fastened to the soles of the feet by crude thongs (crude straps) bound around the ankles. These were the first shoes.

          Among the civilized people, Egyptians were the first to make shoes. They used pads of leather or papyrus (a tree with thick stem) which were bound to the feet with two straps. In order to protect the toes, its front was sometimes turned up. Samples of shoes, made around 2000 B.C. have been found in Egypt.

          In some cold countries, people developed a different kind of shoes. They were bags padded with grass and tied around the feet. 

         As far as the modern shoes are concerned, their origin can be traced back to the crusades. Crusades were the military expeditions by the European Christian countries to recover the Holy land from the Muslims in the Middle Ages. These crusaders went on long-drawn wars and had been on their feet. So it became necessary to make shoes that would last long. Gradually, fine leather shoes of attractive designs began to appear in Italy, France and England.

           The designs of shoes have always been subject to changes according to the fashion. For example, in the 16th century people preferred shoes with broad toes. In the 17th century high heels came into fashion. Kings and nobles also ordered some special changes in the designs of their shoes.

           With the development of modern techniques, many varieties of shoes are now being made. Besides leather, rubber, plastic and canvas are also being used in shoes. Plastic-covered shoes which do not need any polishing have come into fashion. Rexin-top sports shoes have become the most popular throughout the world. Today there is a wide range of shoes to choose from according to one’s needs and taste. 

Today a number of religions are prevalent in the world. It is difficult to say which was the first one to start. However, the story of their origin is very interesting. From the beginning of civilization man had been worshipping many powers that could protect him from different threats in day-to-day life. For this purpose, he selected some powerful or ideal objects for worshipping. A particular spiritual power or ideal was first called a ‘sect’ and later on a ‘religion’. Now the question is how the various major religions of the world originated?

                Hinduism is not a codified religion and its origin cannot be attributed to any one person or deity. It is basically a way of life coming down from the original Aryan settlers in the Indus Valley. Buddhism started around 2500 years ago as a result of Gautama Buddha's teachings.

                The principal religions in the world today are Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, Shinto, Islam, Judaism and Christianity. There are more than 300 million followers of these major religions. They constitute three-fourth of the world’s total population. Approximate number of the followers of different religions is as follows: Christianity 1000 million; Hinduism 520 million; Buddhism 230 million. Confucianism 275 million; Taoism 30 million; Shinto 36 million; Islam 520 million; Judaism 15 million.

                Confucianism was founded by the followers of Saint Confucius. The Tao religion originated from the book - Tao Te Ching written by Lao-tzu in the sixth century B.C. The Shinto religion is the ancient religion of Japan. Similarly, the Muslim religion (Islam) was started by Prophet Mohammed. Likewise all other religions were started by different prophets.

 

One of Julius Caesar’s important reforms was the revision of the Roman calendar. He established the 365 day year, with a leap year every 4 years. This calendar was called the Julian calendar and the month of July was named after Julius Caesar.

On September 11, 2001, terrorists hijacked four passenger planes in the USA and crashed them into skyscrapers at New York and into the Pentagon building, the defence ministry. The terrorists, the pilots, and 3000 innocent people died in these attacks. The leader of Al-Qaida, Osama bin Laden, claimed responsibility for this massive attack.

 

 

Terrorism is the use of terror in the form of violence or threats to force an individual or group to accept the demands of terrorists. Terrorists intentionally destabilize the society and the state through acts of violence like kidnappings or attacks. In their opinion they are waging a war for freedom. For instance, in the Basque region in Spain the ETA has killed more than 800 people in its struggle for an independent state in the past 40 years. 

The United Nations (UN) was established on 24 October 1945 in the aftermath of the two World Wars. The purpose was to save subsequent generations from wars. Over the decades, the UN has ended many conflicts through peacekeeping operations. UN peacekeeping operations are crucial for international peace and security. UN peacekeeping forces received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1988. This brought international recognition to UN peacekeeping. 

The civil war in Sudan - a conflict between Muslims and Christians, Arabs and Africans, or North and South - has claimed two million lives. The civilian death toll is one of the highest of any war since World War II. Religion, ethnicity, and regional issues were the key factors responsible in the early days of the conflict. However, the recent reasons are based on economic lines. Ecological problems, scarcity of resources, and the drought made the situation worse. A Comprehensive Peace Agreement was signed in 2005 in Nairobi between the rebels and the government to end the conflict.

The war has been waged three times in Iraq since 1980. In the first war, Iraq fought against Iran, and in the next two wars, several countries under the leadership of USA fought with Iraq. For many years, the West - in an attempt to secure its influence in the Middle East rich in oil - had supported the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. However, the tables turned in 1990 when Iraq occupied the small neighbouring country of Kuwait and the western countries came to its rescue. The main issue was crude oil. The USA accused Iraq of having weapons of mass destruction, and invaded the country in 2003 with the western allies, defeated the army there, and arrested Saddam Hussein. Since then, the country has been facing a humanitarian crisis of alarming scale of severity. 

Every war has a reason. The causes of wars include conquest, freedom, or religion. The conflicts in the Middle East as well as the wars in Iraq are good examples of this. One of them started in 2003 with the Iraqis gaining freedom from their dictator. In the civil wars, such as those in Sudan, which often resulted in large famines, the issue was mostly the inequalities in the society. Since September 11, 2001, a new form of war - war against international terrorism - has come up. 

Many of the 15 republics of the Union of Socialist Soviet Republic (USSR), had been forced to merge with the Soviet state when it was made in 1922. When the country was in an economic crisis at the end of the 1980s and states like the Czech Republic and Poland were opening themselves up to the West, a few Soviet republics, which were separate states before 1922, declared themselves independent in 1991. By the end of 1991 the erstwhile USSR had split up completely. 

After the summer in 1989, many GDR citizens fled to the West via Hungary and the FRG embassies in the Czech Republic and Poland. In addition, thousands of people demonstrated against the state in Leipzig every Monday. On November 9, a member of the GDR government mentioned by mistake in front of the camera that the inner German borders were open. Thousands took his word for it and celebrated the opening of the borders on the same evening at the Berlin Wall. 

The cold war did not end suddenly. It came about through the actions of Mikhail Gorbachev, the President of the erstwhile USSR. After 20 years of scare tactics by the Soviets, he started with a policy of glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring). Social issues could be discussed openly, the state stopped controlling the economy, and the countries of the East Block like Poland and Hungary got much more freedom from the USSR as compared to earlier times. In 1991, ‘Gorbi’ and the then US president George H. W. Bush signed a first agreement that both will destroy their atomic weapons. The cold war was technically over after this agreement. 

In the twelve years after the founding of the GDR, about 2.5 million people fled the country and went to the FRG. They wanted better living conditions and freedom of opinion because the GDR did not allow any political views that were against the government. To prevent this mass migration of people to the West, the GDR built a wall around West Berlin in August 1961. Moreover, it also renovated the 1800 km long border fence to the FRG with spring guns and made it a ‘death strip’. 

After the three Western powers single-handedly introduced a new currency, the Deutsche Mark, in their zones in 1948, the USSR reacted to this angrily and blocked Berlin. It shut down all channels of supply to West Berlin. The western allies had only two choices: either give up Berlin or supply it by airlift from the West German airports. An aircraft landed in Berlin every 90 seconds, whose pilots threw sweets from the cockpit. As such, these aircraft came to be known as ‘Rosinenbomber’. 

Ten West European countries, the USA, and Canada founded the NATO in 1949. With this alliance, the states agreed to support one another in times of war. The FRG entered this alliance in 1955.The East European counterpart of the NATO was the Warsaw Pact. Both the alliances started arming themselves and the cold war started.