We come in different colors:red, black, white, yellow and brown, have a variety of political systems, social systems, religious views or none at all; we are different intellectually, have different educational systems, different socio-economic classes; psychologically we are normal, abnormal, neurotic, psychotic, we speak different languages, and have different customs and costumes.
Studying human beings biologically and physiologically leads us to very different conclusions about how alike or different we are from each other. Very different indeed, every human being on the planet, all 5. 3 billion of us. has the same number of bones, of the same type, serving the same purposes; each of us has 46 chromosomes, 23 from each parent, and these chromosomes, genes and the DNA and RNA of which they are integral parts, are in every single human being; every cell, every membrane, every tissue, and every organ is the same everywhere. We all have a heart, a circulatory system, 2 lungs, a liver, 2 kidneys, a brain and nervous system, a reproductive system, digestive and excretory systems, musculature, in short, we are the same biologically and our bodies perform. the same functions everywhere on the planet. And as we learned in Shakespeare's. The Merchant of Venice, if you prick us, any of us, "do we not bleed" ? Of course we do, and we bleed red blood no matter what the color of our skin, or the language we speak, the clothing we wear, the gods we worship, or our geographical home. Man is of a piece biologically; all equally effective organisms whether Amazon Indian, Australian aborigine, Parisian artist, Greek sailor, Chinese student, American astronaut, Russian soldier, or Palestinian citizen.
Well then, you ask, how is that so many groups of people disparage other groups, persecute them, and claim superi- ority over them? Why is it that some groups of people still hunt animals, wear little or no clothing, have little or no technology, while others are very sophisticated in their technology, industry, transportation, communication, food gather- ing and storage? It is, of course, a matter of culture and the civilization that emerges and evolves from it. Though man is man everywhere, where he lives, when he lives there, with whom he lives there, all affect how he lives: that is, what he believes, what he wears, his customs, his gods, his rituals, his myths and literature, his language and his institutions. These are man-made ar-tifacts that each group develops over time, living together, facing the same problems, needing and desir-ing the same things. They are his culture, his identity.
The interactions of two powerful forces in all human life: nature (biology) and nurture (culture and civilization), shape us. Each culture has its own distinctive ways of seeing, feeling, thinking, speaking, believing, and just as no two humans are identical in all respects, so no two cultures are identical in all respects. But, wherever humans have lived and live today, there is culture with all of its elements embedded in a civilization that expresses that core of thought and feeling in its language, its institutions and other social organizations. All civilizations and the cultures that nourish them have hierarchies, social institutions, language, art of all kinds, religion or a system of spiritual beliefs of some kind, laws, customs, rituals (other than religious) and ceremonies.
A study of anthropology and make it very clear that humans have created divisions and exacerbated superficial external difference for their own ulterior purposes whether political, social, economic or religious. The truth is that we are much more alike in very basic ways than we are different. If you wear one type of garment and I wear another, we both wear some kind of garment. Our culture demands it. If you speak one language and I another, we both speak so that others will understand us; we must communicate with each other. Nothi
A. Racial difference.
B. Civilization difference.
Cultural difference.
D. Biological difference.
Skeletal remains with animal bone blades tied to the feet testify to skating's existence as early as 10, 000 BC. These remains were found in the Netherlands. Scandinavia is called the mother of skating because of the sport's popularity there, beginning around 1000AD. Ice skating was primarily a means of transportation at first, although documents from the Netherlands indicate that speed races were held in towns as early as the 15th century.
American athlete Jackson Haines is known as the father of modern figure skating. Haines was born in 1840 in New York City. After studying dance and ballet, he became a dancing master and applied his dancing techniques to figure skating. He performed around the world and became well known for his imaginative and artistic techniques. Haines' s style. was enthusiastically received in Europe and eventually became accepted internationally.
The formation of national and international skating organizations began during the 1890s. In 1892 the International Skating Union (ISU) was established. Today the ISU defines the rules and sets performance standards for speed skating, figure skating, and ice dancing competitions. Also in the late 1800s the National Amateur Skating Association of the United States and the International Skating Union of America were founded. In 1921 national standards were set down for skating, and the United States Figure Skating Association (USFSA) was formed to govern the sport in the United States, superseding the earlier organizations. Speed skating in the United States is governed by the United States International Speed Skating Association and the Amateur Speedskating Union of the United States, both of which are affiliated with the ISU.
The first official men's world speed skating championships were held in 1893. Women's world championship speed skating events first took place in 1947. The first men's world figure skating championships were held in Saint Petersburg, Russia, in 1896, and in 1906 the first women's championships were held in Davos, Switzerland. Figure skating was included in the Summer Olympics of 1908 and 1920 and at the first Winter Olympics in 1924, where men's speed skating events were also held. Women's speed skating made its Olympic debut in the 1960 Olympic Games. Ice dancing was added to Olympic competition in 1976, and short-track speed skating was first included in the 1988 Games.
Norway's Sonja Henie played a large role in popularizing figure skating during the 1920s and 1930s. On the strength of her athletic jumps, modern costumes, and inventive choreography she won gold medals at the Winter Olympic Games in 1928, 1932, and 1936. Henie later skated in ice shows and in motion pictures, inspiring many people to take up skating. American skater Dick Button; a five-time world champion and two-time Olympic gold medalist, brought outstanding athleticism to skating. Along with inventing the flying camel sit spin, he was also the first skater to successfully complete a double axel and a triple jump in competition. In the 1970s Soviet pairs skaters Oleg and Ludmila Protopopov trans- formed pairs skating with their elegant, balletlike movements. In the 1980s British ice dancers Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean dominated competition with innovative routines that broke away from ice dancing traditions.
The development of modern speed skating is credited to Jaap Eden, a Dutch skater born in 1873. He set a world record in 1894, completing a 5000-meter race in 8 minutes 37. 6 seconds. Since then Eden's record has been broken many times and today the best skaters complete the same distance in a little over 6 minutes, primarily as a result of more sophisticated training methods. Other successful speed skaters include Eric Heiden of the United States, a three-time world champion who won five gold medals during the 1980 Winter Olympics; Norway's Johann Olay Koss. who set three new world records during the 19
American athlete Jackson Haines.
B. Norway's Sonja Henie.
C. American skater Dick Button.
Dutch skater Jaap Eden.