Cremation

The Greeks cremated their dead 3,000 years ago.

The Ancient Druids cremated their dead and buried the ashes in mounds.

Cremations in the Roman Empire were stopped because of their pagan associations and concerns that they might interfere with the resurrection of the body and its reunion with the soul.

Christians made cremation such a crime that an 18th century doctor was prosecuted for cremating his dead child.

The first authorised cremation in Britain took place in 1769. The name of the deceased was Honoretta Pratt.

Henry Laurens, a Charleston, South Carolina statesman was the first formal cremation in the US in 1792. He left instructions in his will.

Revival of interest in cremation in Europe and America began in the late 1800s with the rise of large cities and the realisation of the health hazards associated with crowded cemeteries. In 1884 a British court made cremations legal.

Cremation was re-introduced in Britain in the 19th century by 84-year-old Archdruid Dr. William Price. On January 13, 1884 he burned the dead body of his baby son, named Iesu Grist (the Welsh for Jesus Christ), as he believed it was wrong to bury a corpse, thereby polluting the earth. Price performed the funeral upon the summit of a hill to one side of Llantrisant.

The first legal cremation took place in England on March 26, 1885. The painter Mrs Jeanette Pickersgill of London was cremated by the Cremation Society at Woking Crematorium in Surrey. The cremation took one hour and 15 minutes. The remains were taken many years later to Golders Green Crematorium's East Columbarium.

Golders Green Crematorium. Wikipedia Commons

The Pope lifted the Catholic ban on cremations in 1963.

In Britain cremation overtook burial as the most popular means of disposal in 1968.

After David Bowie went to Bali with Iggy Pop, he was so impressed by the Balinese Cremation Ceremony that he requested he be transported back there upon his death and “cremated in accordance with the Buddhist rituals of Bali.” He ended up being cremated in New Jersey.

Japan has the highest rate of cremation in the world, at approximately 99.9%.

Hawaii has the highest percentage of cremations of all other U.S. states, with a 60.6 percent preference over burial.

NASA's plan to dispose of corpses in space is to freeze them in the airlock and then violently shake the body with a robotic arm until it turns to space dust.

The cremated remains of James Doohan - Star Trek's Scotty - were launched into outer space.

Eugene Merle Shoemaker, the co-discoverer of the Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9,  is the only person with remains placed on a celestial body outside Earth. On July 18, 1997 Shoemaker died in a car crash while on an expedition for crater sites in Australia. On July 31, 1999, some of his ashes were carried to the Moon by the Lunar Prospector space probe.

Whenever custodians at a Disney theme park get a call for a "HEPA cleanup," it means someone has released cremated ashes on a ride, and they need to be vacuumed up.

Cremating a human body requires the same amount of energy as the monthly domestic demands of a single person.

There is a company called Holy Smokes that will take your cremated ashes and put them into bullets.

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