Excerpts from President Obama’s recent speech in Cairo, Egypt.
“It was innovation in Muslim communities that developed the order of algebra…”
“…our magnetic compass and tools of navigation…”
“A compass is an instrument containing a freely suspended magnetic element which displays the direction of the horizontal component of the Earth’s magnetic field at the point of observation. The magnetic compass is an old Chinese invention, probaly first made in China during the Qin dynasty (221-206 B.C.). Chinese fortune tellers used lodestones (a mineral composed of an iron oxide which aligns itself in a north-south direction) to construct their fortune telling boards.” (solarnavigator.net)
“…our mastery of pens and printing…”
(I actually checked multiple sources online and they all point to the Egyptians as the possible source of the first real writing utensils. As far as printing goes, it was the Chinese who developed this technology. Gutenberg perfected it.)
“The first pens were likely the reed writing utensils used by the early Egyptians (some historians claim Egyptians used such devices as early as 3000 BC). These simple thin devices were formed from a single piece of reed carved carefully into a point (or occasionally into split-point nibs, as in modern pens). Due to the inflexibility of the reed, these tended to blunt easily and were replaced by quill pens by the 7th century. (more…)
“…our understanding of how disease spreads and how it can be healed…”
“Medical geography has a long history. Since the time of the Greek doctor, Hippocrates (5th-4th centuries BCE), people have studied the effect of location on one’s health. For example, early medicine studied the differences in diseases experienced by people living at high versus low elevation. It was easily understood that those at living low elevations near waterways would be more prone to malaria than those at higher elevations or in drier, less humid areas. Though the reasons for these variations were not fully understood at the time, the study of this spatial distribution of disease is the beginnings of medical geography.” (more…)
Medicine has been around for centuries going back as far as ancient Egypt. This website provides a decent historical timeline.
I have always been fascinated with history. So when historical references are made, I am always cross checking them with what I have studied over the years. So when I heard the historical references being made by Obama this morning, I knew he was giving the Islamic world way too much credit. Rush Limbaugh brought this up as well on his show this morning.
What bothers me about Obama’s speech is that it is not being held to the same level of scrutiny that was given to past Presidents. Bush mispronounces the names of Middle Eastern leaders and he is flambéed over it. Obama reinvents history and his speech is “…reminiscent of Martin Luther King Jr. in its vision.”
“As the Holy Quran tells us, ‘Be conscious of God and speak always the truth’.” (President Barack Obama)
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Whoever paid for his Harvard education must feel like they got gypped.