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{{Image|Lachapskull.jpg|right|220px|Homo neanderthalensis skull from La Chapelle-aux-Saints, France.}}
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The '''[[Neanderthal]]s''' are an extinct nonmodern hominid that come chronologically extremely close to the modern era, becoming extinct less than 30,000 years ago. The classic Neanderthal traits are found from about 75,000 to 35,000 years ago, but it is difficult to date the initial appearance of this species. Without great dating techniques, the best early estimate comes from the Moula Guercy site in France dating the earliest appearance of Neanderthals to 120,000 years ago.
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==Footnotes==
For decades the Neanderthals have been viewed as a hunched, hairy, stumbling, stupid cave man that lived tens of thousands of years ago. This image can be highly attributed to Marcellin Boule, a French paleoanthropologist at the beginning of the twentieth century. In 1908, at La Chapelle-aux-Saints in southwestern France a nearly complete male skeleton was excavated and Boule spent the better part of three years examining this specimen. The man was old in terms of Neanderthal standards, aging between 40 and 50 years old and suffered from severe arthritis in his spine. This fact was discovered long after Boule described him as hunched over, practicing an inefficient shuffling gait type of bipedalism. His preconceptions, opposed to scientific objectivity, resulted in the misconception about the genus as a whole. Today this is reflected in not only in normal perception but shown in popular culture, specifically the insurance company that concludes their process is "So Easy, a Caveman Can Do It." Interestingly, these commercials counter react the misconceptions by having offended cavemen be present and engaged in modern, human-like behavior, highlighting the misconception placed by Boule a hundred years ago.
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===Discovery===
Neander Valley, literally translated in German as "Neandertal", in the German Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia, where the river Düssel flows to meet the Rhine. It is here that the first fossil to be recognized as a different kind of human was discovered. It this day in August of 1856 that many claim to be beginning of the field of paleoanthropology. Miners in search of limestone blasted open the entrance to a small cave, Feldhofer Cave (also called Feldhofer Grotto) where an array of fossilized bones were found. The miners mostly discarded the bones, but sat some aside to bring to a local school teacher, believing them to be bones from a cave bear. Included in this group was the skullcap that will eventually become the holotype of Homo neanderthalensis. The fossil displays a long skull joining with very pronounced brow ridges above the orbits. In addition, the miners came across two femora, five arm bones, part of the left ilium, portions of a scapula and multiple ribs. These fossils were delivered to a school teacher and amateur natural historian, Johann Fuhlrott.
 
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Latest revision as of 10:19, 11 September 2020

The Irvin pin. The eyes have always been red, but there are urban legends about the meanings of other colors.
A pin from another company, possibly Switlik or Standard Parachute. This style is common in catalogs and auctions of military memorabilia.

The Caterpillar Club is an informal association of people who have successfully used a parachute to bail out of a disabled aircraft. After authentication by the parachute maker, applicants receive a membership certificate and a distinctive lapel pin.

History

Before April 28, 1919 there was no way for a pilot to jump out of a plane and then to deploy a parachute. Parachutes were stored in a canister attached to the aircraft, and if the plane was spinning, the parachute could not deploy. Film industry stuntman Leslie Irvin developed a parachute that the pilot could deploy at will from a back pack using a ripcord. He joined the Army Air Corps parachute research team, and in April 1919 he successfully tested his design, though he broke his ankle during the test. Irvin was the first person to make a premeditated free fall jump from an airplane. He went on to form the Irving Airchute Company, which became a large supplier of parachutes. (A clerical error resulted in the addition of the "g" to Irvin and this was left in place until 1970, when the company was unified under the title Irvin Industries Incorporated.) The Irvin brand is now a part of Airborne Systems, a company with operations in Canada, the U.S. and the U.K.[1].

An early brochure [2] of the Irvin Parachute Company credits William O'Connor 24 August 1920 at McCook Field near Dayton, Ohio as the first person to be saved by an Irvin parachute, but this feat was unrecognised. On 20 October 1922 Lieutenant Harold R. Harris, chief of the McCook Field Flying Station, jumped from a disabled Loening W-2A monoplane fighter. Shortly after, two reporters from the Dayton Herald, realising that there would be more jumps in future, suggested that a club should be formed. 'Caterpillar Club' was suggested because the parachute canopy was made of silk, and because caterpillars have to climb out of their cocoons and fly away. Harris became the first member, and from that time forward any person who jumped from a disabled aircraft with a parachute became a member of the Caterpillar Club. Other famous members include General James Doolittle, Charles Lindbergh and (retired) astronaut John Glenn.

In 1922 Leslie Irvin agreed to give a gold pin to every person whose life was saved by one of his parachutes. By 1945 the number of members with the Irvin pins had grown to over 34,000. In addition to the Irvin Air Chute Company and its successors, other parachute manufacturers have also issued caterpillar pins for successful jumps. Irvin/Irving's successor, Airborne Systems Canada, still provides pins to people who made their jump long ago and are just now applying for membership. Another of these is Switlik Parachute Company, which though it no longer makes parachutes, still issues pins.

Footnotes

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