Deaf history

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The history of deaf people and

Deaf people who know Sign Language are proud of their history. In the United States, they recount the story of

Another powerful bonding forced in the Deaf culture is athletics. Athletics open up a path to achievement where many others are shut out by prejudice due to the level playing field of certain sports. Athletics also create many networking opportunities for Deaf people across the United States to expand their social circles, due to the increased mobility that results from out-of-state competitions, because the deaf population is considerably small at the local scale.^[3] Deaf people participate in athletic activities to cultivate their cultural identity as Deaf people. In athletics, they can find solidarity where they are able to comfortably communicate with one another without barriers, embrace values and social norms natural for them and distinct from those in the hearing community, and allow for Deaf people to participate as coaches, athletes, and participants.^[4] The American Athletic Association of the Deaf (AAAD) is huge help for deaf people by representing Deaf clubs and organizations throughout the entire American states.^[5] The impact of sports in the deaf community can also be seen on the international level. The Deaflympics, sanctioned by the International Olympic Committee, are an elite international sporting event where deaf athletes from across the world compete against each other quadrennially.^[6]

Famous living Deaf people

• Nyle DiMarco
• Ashley Fiolek
• Matt Hamill
• Braam Jordaan
• Chella Man
• Marlee Matlin
• Heather Whitestone
• Shoshannah Stern

Timeline

• 1000 B.C.:
  Hebrew Law denied deaf rights. The Torah protected the deaf from being cursed by others, but did not allow them to participate fully in the rituals of the Temple. Special laws concerning marriage and property were established for deaf-mutes, but deaf-mutes were not allowed to be witnesses in the courts.^[7][8]
• c. 364 B.C.: Aristotle asserted that the "Deaf are born incapable to reason".^[9]
• c. 360 B.C.: Socrates, as quoted by Plato in Cratylus, mentioned the deaf who express themselves in gestures movement, depicting that which is light or a higher sphere by raising the hands or describing a galloping horse by imitating its motion.^[10]
• c. 44 B.C.:
  Quintus Pedius is the earliest deaf person in recorded history known by name.^[11][12]
• 135 A.D.:
  Saint Ovidius died; he is the patron saint of curing auditory disease.^[13]
• 131: Galen, a Greek physician from Pergamon wrote "Speech and hearing share the same source in the brain…"^[14]
• 738: In the
  Emperor Justinian deduced that being deaf and mute are two different traits and are not always together.^[15][16]

• 1550:
  teacher of the deaf in history, as he developed a form of sign language and successfully taught speech to deaf people from birth.^[17]
• 1620: Juan Pablo Bonet published the first book on the subject of manual alphabetic signs for the deaf. However, it was not until 1885 that it was published in England, as Simplification of the letters of the alphabet and method of teaching deaf-mutes to speak.^[17]
• 1668: William Holder and John Wallis taught a deaf man to speak "plainly and distinctly, and with a good and graceful tone."^[18]
• 1778: Samuel Heinicke opened the first school for the deaf and mute in Germany.^[19]
• 1817: The American School for the Deaf was founded in Hartford, Connecticut. This was the first school for children with disabilities anywhere in the western hemisphere.^[20]
• 1857: In 1857, the
  District of Columbia.^[21]
• 1849: Ferdinand Berthier became the first deaf person to receive the Legion of Honour.^[22]
• Late 1850s: In the late 1850s there was a debate about whether or not to create a separate deaf state in the west. This deaf state would be a place where all deaf people could migrate, if chosen to, and prosper; however, this plan failed and the whole debate died.^[1]
• 1860: The Victorian College for the Deaf was founded.^[23]
• 1864: The U.S. Congress authorized the Columbia Institution for the Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb and the Blind to confer college degrees, and President Abraham Lincoln signed the bill into law. Edward Miner Gallaudet was made president of the entire corporation, including the college. It was the first college in the world established for people with disabilities and is now known as Gallaudet University.^[20]
• 1880: The Second International Congress on Education of the Deaf happened in 1880 in Milan, Italy. It is commonly known as "The Milan Conference". The conference held deliberations from September 6, 1880, to September 11, 1880, declared that oral education was superior to manual education, and decided to ban the use of sign language in school. Following the conference, schools in Europe and the United States switched to using speech therapy without sign language as a method of education for the deaf.^[2]
• 1880: America's National Association of the Deaf was established.^[24]
• 1883: Ed Dundon became the first deaf player in Major League Baseball.^[25]
• 1883:
  Episcopal Church in the United States.^[26][27]
• 1896: The first woman (Julia Foley) was elected to the board of the United States National Association of the Deaf.^[28]
• 1933-1945: The
  Third Reich forcibly sterilized hereditary deaf people in Germany and murdered many deaf people. Nevertheless, the role of Deaf people in Nazi Germany was more complicated than simply being victimized, as many Deaf Organizations during the Holocaust also collaborated with the Nazis.^[29]
• 1911:
  Cal Rodgers became the first deaf pilot in the U.S. in 1911.^[30]
• 1924: The first Deaflympics, held in Paris in 1924, were the first ever international sporting event for athletes with a disability.^[31]
• 1932: The Italian National Agency for the Deaf was established in September 1932 in Padua,^[32] Italy, under the auspices of Ente Nazionale Sordomuti (ENS), the Italian Deaf Association.^[33]
• 1949: There were racially segregated schools for the deaf in 13 states. ^[34]
• 1951: The World Federation of the Deaf was established in September 1951 in Rome, Italy, at the first World Deaf Congress, under the auspices of Ente Nazionale Sordomuti (ENS), the Italian Deaf Association.^[35]
• 1952: Gallaudet College started to admit black students.^[36]
• 1958: PL 85-905, which authorized loan services for captioned films for the deaf, became law in the U.S.^[37]
• 1960:
  Cambridge University.^[38]
• 1960: The Junior United States National Association of the Deaf was established.^[28]
• 1960: William Stokoe published Sign Language Structure (1960),^[39] which was the first place the term "American sign language" was ever formally used. (The fully capitalized version: "American Sign Language," first appeared in the Buff and Blue in October 1963.)^[40]
• 1964: Robert Weitbrecht made the first successful teletypewriter phone call from one deaf person to another. It took several tries, until Weitbrecht's words appeared clearly: "Are you printing now? Let's quit for now and gloat over the success."^[41]
• 1964: Women members of the United States National Association of the Deaf were first allowed to vote.^[28]
• 1965: Black members were first accepted into the United States National Association of the Deaf.^[28]
• 1965:
  Carl G. Croneberg was the first to discuss analogies between Deaf and hearing cultures in his appendices C/D of the 1965 Dictionary of American Sign Language.^[42]
• 1965: The National Technical Institute for the Deaf at the Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, New York, was established by the U.S. Congress.^[20]
• Early 1970s: Paul Taylor created America's first local telephone relay system for the deaf.^[43]
• 1972: The first Miss Deaf America Pageant (called the Miss Deaf America Talent Pageant until 1976) was held during the United States National Association of the Deaf Convention in Miami Beach, Florida; the winner was Ann Billington.^[44][45]
• 1971: The October 31, 1971 episode of The French Chef (on its ninth anniversary) was the first U.S. television show to be captioned for deaf viewers.^[46]
• 1973:
  The Rehabilitation Act of 1973 includes a section requiring that disabled people be given access and equal opportunity to use the resources of organizations that receive federal funds or that are under federal contracts.^[47]
• 1974: Alice Lougee Hagemeyer created Deaf Awareness Week, later called Deaf Heritage Week, in which programs about deaf culture are held in libraries.^[48]
• 1975: Tom L. Humphries coined the term audism in his doctoral dissertation in 1975.^[49]
• 1975: 94-142
  Education of All Handicapped Children Act passed.^[50]
• 1975:
  Justice Rehnquist
  , the Court held that public schools are not required by law to provide sign language interpreters to deaf students who are otherwise receiving an equal and adequate education.
• 1977: The Rainbow Alliance of the Deaf is a nonprofit established in America in 1977 to, "establish and maintain a society of Deaf
  LGBT to encourage and promote the educational, economical, and social welfare; to foster fellowship; to defend our rights; and advance our interests as Deaf LGBT citizens concerning social justice; to build up an organization in which all worthy members may participate in the discussion of practical problems and solutions related to their social welfare." RAD now has chapters in the United States and Canada.^[51][52]
• 1978: The (American) National Center for Law and the Deaf was founded in Washington, D.C.^[20]
• 1980:
  Tony Award; she was the first deaf actor or actress to win a Tony Award.^[53][54]
• 1980: Alice Lougee Hagemeyer founded the unit now known as the Library Service to People who are Deaf or Hard of Hearing Forum, which is a unit within the American Library Association.^[48]
• 1980: Gertrude Galloway became the first female president of the United States National Association of the Deaf.^[28]
• 1981: Black Deaf Experience conference was held at Howard University in Washington, DC.^[55]
• 1982: America's National Black Deaf Advocates was established in 1982 "to promote the leadership development, economic and educational opportunities, social equality, and to safeguard the general health and welfare of Black deaf and hard-of-hearing people."^[56]
• 1982: In a 1982 case involving hereditary deafness, the Supreme Court of California was the first state supreme court to endorse the child's right to sue for wrongful life, but in the same decision, limited the child's recovery to special damages.^[57][58] This rule implies that the child can recover objectively provable economic damages, but cannot recover general damages like subjective "pain and suffering"—that is, monetary compensation for the entire experience of having a disabled life versus having a healthy mind and/or body.
• 1986: Baltimore Leather Association of the Deaf (BLADeaf), the first deaf leather club in America, was founded. Its original name was Maryland Lambda Alliance of the Deaf and it had three name changes before its name was changed to BLADeaf. It was founded by Elwood C. Bennett, Scott Wilson, and Harry "Abbe" Woosley, Jr.^[59][60]
• 1987: Marlee Matlin became the first deaf performer to win an Academy Award, as well as the youngest winner in the Best Actress category.^{[61][62][63][64]}
• 1988: Virginia Nagel was ordained as the first deaf female priest in the Episcopal Church.^[65]
• 1988: A Deaf President Now student demonstration was held at Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C. On March 13 Dr. I. King Jordan was named the first deaf president of the university.^[20][66]
• 1990: The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 was enacted.^[67]
• 1993: Rebecca Dubowe became the first deaf woman to be ordained as a rabbi in the United States.^[68]
• 1993:
  United States Supreme Court. A deaf child and his parents sued the Catalina Foothills Unified School District in Arizona because the district refused to provide a sign language interpreter for the child after he transferred from a public school to Salpointe Catholic High School, a parochial school. Plaintiffs challenged the refusal to provide an interpreter on a variety of constitutional and statutory grounds, including the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act ("IDEA"),^[69] its Arizona counterpart,^[70] an IDEA regulation,^[71] the Arizona Constitution,^[72]
  and the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. Plaintiffs successfully sought relief from a federal district court, which concluded "The service at issue in this case is part of a general government program that distributes benefits neutrally to any child qualifying as 'handicapped' under the IDEA, without regard to the 'sectarian-nonsectarian, or public-nonpublic nature' of the school the child attends". In a 5–4 decision, the Supreme Court reached the same issue, but reversed on the merits, finding that if it provided an interpreter the school district would not violate the Establishment Clause.
• 1995: Heather Whitestone, the first deaf Miss America, was crowned in 1995.^[73]
• 1996: Gallaudet College was renamed Gallaudet University.^[74]
• 1999: Beth Lockard was ordained as the first deaf pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.^[75][76]
• 1999: Bates v. UPS (begun in 1999) was the first
  Americans with Disabilities Act
  . Key findings included