- Sail
For thousands of years sails have been used to harness the wind. By 3500 B.C.E., ancient Egyptian vessels were being blown up the Nile by the prevailing wind before returning under oars, and the Phoenicians pioneered the development of hardier vessels for sea voyages.
However, these vessels used square-rigged sails to catch the wind and carry them along with it. In order to progress into the wind the sail must instead be used
as an aerofoil to produce a lifting force perpendicular to the wind passing over it. The sail can be angled toward the wind and a component of the lift force generated gives forward thrust to the vessel, thus allowing modern craft to sail within a few degrees of the very direction from which the wind is blowing.
Sails were employed in this way in the Arabian Sea in 300 C.E., but further developments were minor until the fifteenth century and the advent of the European full-rigged vessel. This bore multiple masts hung withbboth triangular and square sails, providing maneuverability as well as stability and power.
Commercial sailing peaked in the nineteenth century with the emergence of the Americas as competition in trade. Speed and size were paramount, characterized by clippers traveling at up to 20 knots (37 km/h) from China, North America, and Australia, and by vast full-riggers powered around Cape Horn by more than an acre (0.4 ha) of sail area.
SEE ALSO: WOVEN CLOTH, DUGOUT CANOE, ROWBOAT, RUDDER, MOTORBOAT
- Sandwich
Hittites serve meat between slices of bread.
The invention of the sandwich is popularly credited to John Montague, Fourth Earl of Sandwich. Its origins go much further back than this, however. Another common belief comes from the Jewish tradition-that the sandwich was invented by Hillel the Elder in the first century B.C.E. During Passover, Hillel the Elders invention is commemorated in the text: "This is what Hillel did when the Temple existed: he used to entrap the Paschal lamb, the matzo, and the bitter herbs and eat them as one”. At this point of the remembrance service, the participants do likewise.
Evidence suggests that the sandwich may go back. even further than this, to the days of the Hittite Empire, hundreds of years before. There are records of soldiers of the empire being issued with meat between slices of bread as their rations.
Today's sandwich comes in a multitude of varieties from international cuisines. Although there has been some controversy over what constitutes a sandwich (resulting in one court ruling in the United States), it is generally understood to be a meal made from two slices of bread and a filling.
The Earl of Sandwich's part in the story, apart from giving the meal its name, lay in popularizing the sandwich in England in the eighteenth. century. It is believed that Montague liked the sandwich because he could eat it without getting grease on his fingers from meat, making it a suitable snack to eat while playing cards. Whether or not this is true is debatable, but certainly after this time the sandwich became the dominant lunchtime meal in England. Being easy to prepare, portable, and adaptable to limitless variations, the sandwich has never lost its popularity and can now be bought from thousands of dedicated outlets and chains across the world.
SEE ALSO: BREAKFAST CEREAL, POWDERED MILK, CANNED FOOD, POP-UP TOASTER, AUTOMATIC BREAD SLICER