Year

Month

Day

Event

~300,
000,
000
BCE

Reptiles evolve internal fertilization, using a retractable penis.

~100,
000,
000
BCE

A proto-mammalian species evolves the foreskin. (Alligators also have one: it would be an easy thing to evolve more than once.)

~600,
000
BCE

The species Homo sapiens emerges, still wearing his foreskin.

*4004 BCE

October

29
(Sat.)

Adam created (with a foreskin), according to Gen 1:27 or 2:7 and *Archbishop Ussher's 1650 chronology

~3100 BCE

Egypt invaded from the south - by tribes bringing circumcision?

~2300 BCE

Egypt: bas-relief made for the tomb of the 6th Dynasty tjatey (vizier) Ankhmabor (Overseer of the Great House, First Under the King [Teti]) in Saqqara that may show genital mutilation being performed. The actual relief is hard to interpret:

The nude male at right is surmounted by an inscription in which he says: sin wnnt r mnx (“Sever, indeed, thoroughly”). The man kneeling before him says: iw(.i) r irt r nDm (“I will proceed carefully”).

Note that the victim on the left is being forcibly restrained. One interpretation is that it just shows the pubic hair being shaved - but the operator is telling the man doing the restraining: nDr sw m rdi dbA.f (“Hold him fast. Do not let him faint”). The restrainer says: iri.i r Hst.k (“I will do as you wish”). Contrary to some reports, no circumcised mummies have been found, but some statues show what may be a superincision (dorsal slit).

More commonly seen is a modern reproduction on papyrus for tourists:

This image has virtually become a logo for the "circumcision prevents AIDS" mantra. It appears on

• The circumfestish website circlist
• Genital cutting advocate Brian Morris's website
• A WHO document about circumcision
• A London circumcision clinic's site.
• Others, variously [Other sightings?]

2100 BCE

Stela of Uha says “When I [Uha] was circumcised, along with 120 men, none therein struck, none therein were struck; none therein scratched, none therein were scratched,” suggesting it was compulsory, but they went willingly.

Click for larger

1713 BCE / *1913 BCE

Abraham is instructed by G*d to circumcise himself and the tribe of Israel, according to Gen.17 10-27.

*1739 BCE

The sons of Jacob impose circumcision on the Hivites to weaken them, according to Gen. 34 14 -25.

1549-1524 BCE

Reign of King Ahmose I, founder of Dynasty 18 and the New Kingdom, whose mummy is intact:

Click for larger

*1491 BCE

Moses' wife Zipporah circumcises his son Gershon as some kind of reproach to him, according to Ex.4 25.

*1491 BCE

Israelites abandon circumcision (according to Josh 5 5) when they leave Egypt.

*1451 BCE

Israelites resume circumcision according to Josh. 5 2, "...again the second time" suggesting to one rabbi in the Talmud that Periah (radical circumcision) was instituted then.

*mid-13th c BCE

Moses mentions circumcision in passing on Mt Sinai (Leviticus 12 3) while specifying the duration of women's impurity after childbirth.

*1063 BCE

David kills and circumcises 200 Philistines (twice as many as Saul asked for) to provide a bride-price, according to 1 Sam. 18, 24 - 47.

~450 BCE

Greek historians note circumcision and penectomy among the Arabs, far antedating Islam.

Herodotus (484 - 420 BCE) notes circumcision among the Colchians, Ethiopians, Phoenicians, Syrians, and Macrones, as well as the Egyptian priestly caste. He criticises the fanatical ritual cleanliness of the Egyptians, saying "They [even] practice circumcision for the sake of cleanliness, considering it better to be clean than comely." - a terrible price in Greek eyes. (The context is of things Egyptians do that are the reverse of what other [more sensible] people do.) He notes that the salutory influence of Greek culture caused the Phoenicians to abandon circumcision. (Hodges)

~170 BCE

The Seleucid king Antiochus IV Epiphanes (175 - 165 BCE) consolidates Alexander's empire, and attempts to impose Greek civilization, including a ban on ritual circumcision. Some Jews seek foreskin restoration.

~3 BCE

Jan

1

Jesus is circumcised according to Luke 2 21.

43 CE

St Paul convinces a meeting in Jerusalem that circumcision is not essential for Christian converts.

~45

132

Emperor Hadrian (98-138 CE) extends a previous ban, by Emperors Domitian (81-96) and Nerva (96-98), on castration of citizens or slaves throughout the Roman Empire, to include circumcision.

According to Historia Augusta this was the cause of the Bar Kokhba Revolt (132-6 CE), the third major Jewish war against the Empire.

- the first time circumcision was described as "mutilation"?

~140

Mishnah (commentary on Torah) first written down, details Periah (radical circumcision) giving rise to the idea that it was instituted then, to prevent Hellenized Jews from passing as intact in the Greek gymnasia.

Emperor Antoninus Pius lifts the legal prohibition on circumcision, but only for Jews, not their slaves, servants or other non-Jews (as prescribed by Jewish law).

~170

Galen (131-201 CE) describes methods of foreskin restoration.

~320

Emperor Constantine renews the ban on Jews circumcising non-Jews.

533

The Digest of Justinian restates the ban of Constantine.

~550

Christian church begins celebrating January 1 as the Feast of the Circumcision (of Christ).

570

Mohammed born "already circumcised" supposedly giving rise to Islamic circumcision, the most frequent single kind (but see ~450 BCE).

~1180-1190

Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon, better known as Maimonides or "the Rambam" (1135-1204 CE), writes his "Guide for the Perplexed".

~1350

Polynesian voyagers reach Aotearoa (later "New Zealand") and abandon supercision.

1523

~1550

1710

Clergyman turned physician Bekker publishes "Onania, or The Heinous Sin of Self Pollution, and all its frightful consequences in both sexes, considered, with spiritual and physical advice, etc."

1741

Swiss physician Tissot publishes "Onanism, Or, A Treatise on the Disorders of Masturbation" beginning the spread of the "masturbation danger" theory throughout Europe.

1842

French surgeon Claude-François Lallemand completes Les Pertes seminales involontaires (Involuntary seminal losses), promoting belief in "spermatorrhoea" - the view that almost any discharge from the penis was dangerous - promoting acupuncture (with large needles pushed into the prostate), catheters, cauterisation and circumcision as "cures" - all done as painfully as possible. His views are very influential.

1843

Reform rabbis in Frankfurt question the need for physical circumcision. The controversy lasts for 20 years.

1854

Jonathan Hutchinson surveys his Jewish and gentile patients and decides circumcision prevents syphilis (but not, as the same data implies, that it promotes gonorrhoea)

1860

Apr

7

In The Lancet (vol. 1: pp. 344-345), Athol A. W. Johnson promotes circumcision of boys with long foreskins to "cure" masturbation.

1860s

Circumcision as preventative of masturbation becomes UK medical dogma.

1861

English surgeon Isaac Baker Brown publishes the second edition of On Some Diseases of Women Admitting of Surgical Treatment with a section about "hypertrophy and irritation" of the clitoris leading to masturbation and recommending clitoridectomy as treatment comparable to circumcision.

1866

Isaac Baker Brown publishes a compendium of his cases. A heated debate arises in which the male and female genitalia are sharply distinguished (and the honour of women and the danger of doctors pronouncing on their virtue is an important factor) ...

1866

... leading to the expulsion of Isaac Baker Brown from the British Obstetrical Society and the repudiation of circumcision for females at the expense of males.

- R. Darby, A Surgical Temptation, p 298

1869

Nov

28

Approval by 13 Reform Jewish Rabbis who met in Philadelphia that: "... birth, and not circumcision, is the initiation into the Jewish religion."

- New York Times archives

1870

Lewis A. Sayre announces to the AMA that circumcision cures paralysis, epilepsy and masturbation, setting off the medical craze for "therapeutic" circumcision. His "circumcision" is, however, conservative, preserving as much tissue as possible. "Mutilation" was to be avoided.

1877

John Harvey Kellogg MD (1852-1943) publishes the first edition of "Plain facts for old and young: embracing the natural history and hygiene of organic life", in which child (but not infant) circumcision is promoted to "cure" masturbation.

1879

Neisser discovers the bacteria that cause gonnorrhoea, beginning the end of belief in "spermatorrhoea".

1881

Jul

2

Charles Guiteau shoots and kills President James A. Garfield. Phimosis and smegma buildup under his foreskin are blamed for his mental state.

1882

Norman H. Chapman, professor of nervous and mental disease at the University of Kansas City, writes in Medical News (Philadelphia) vol 41: p317 that "it is always good surgery to correct this deformity [a long and contracted foreskin]... as a precautionary measure, even though no symptoms have as yet presented themselves" ushering in routine circumcision.

1885

Dr Samuel Newman of New York advocates the circumcision of newborns. One of the advantages he claims is that it can be done without anaesthetic, and he borrows the idea of strapping the baby to a board from the Indians.

1885

Nov

16

At the National Rabbinical Convention of the Reformed Hebrew Church in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, Dr Kohler of New York, "denounced the rite of circumcision as a relic of barbarism."

- New York Times archives

The conference issued an eight-point platform that might be read as abandoning circumcision (e.g. that they "...maintain only such ceremonies as elevate and sanctify our lives, but reject all such as are not adapted to the views and habits of modern civilization"), but did not explicitly do so.

late 1880s

The newly formed American Academy of Pediatrics joins Lewis Sayre's 1870 call for routine [neonatal] circumcision. Determined to lower the nation's infant mortality rate by reducing often-lethal diarrhoea, the AAP argues that the foreskin irritates the penis, which irritates the nervous system, which hampers digestion, which causes diarrhoea. (Simultaneously, the AAP also recommends against breast milk, saying it is a leading cause of infant diarrhoea. "Irritation" was a euphemism for sexual stimulation.)

1890

Herbert Snow publishes The barbarity of circumcision as a remedy for congenital abnormality, calling for "the abolition of an antiquated practice involving the infliction of very considerable suffering upon helpless infants; and sanctioned, on very questionable grounds, by men of eminent authority. ... no sane man who possessed the advantages of a sound and entire prepuce would willingly sacrifice it without just and sufficient cause being shown." - a man ahead of his time.

- R. Darby, A Surgical Temptation, p 301ff

1894

British-born but US-trained Elizabeth Blackwell denounces barbarity of circumcision, largely on ethical grounds.

1902

Peter C. Remondino publishes his influential "History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present. Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance...."
It is he who first declared that the foreskin was a relic of the time when man lived in "a wild state", and "in pursuit of either the juicy grasshopper or other small game, or of the female of his own species to gratify his lust, or in the frantic rush to escape the clutches, fangs, or claws of a pursuing enemy, he was obliged to fly and leap over thorny briars and bramble-bushes or hornets' nests or plunge through swamps alive with blood-sucking insects or leeches", that he needed "the protecting double fold of the preputial envelope that protected it from the thorns and cutting grasses, the coarse bark of trees, or the stings and bites of insects" but no longer needs it today - a claim that is still repeated today, though in somewhat less elaborate form.

1928

May

9-11

Dr Thomas Bolling Gay recommends routine infant circumcision to prevent phimosis and hence masturbation to the Med. Assoc of Georgia. His paper is published in JAMA July 21

1929

Eleanor Rathbone elected to the House of Commons as the Independent Member for the Combined British Universities. Over the next few years she campaigned against female circumcision in Africa.

1932

Jan

16

Abraham Leo Wolbarst's paper claiming that circumcision prevents cancer of the penis published in The Lancet (based on a few case reports of cancer in India and the US).

1934

Hiram S. ("Inch") Yellen, M.D. (1894-1969) and Aaron A. Goldstein (1899-1945) invent the GOMCO clamp.

late 1935

An extensive debate in the British Medical Journal shows doctors evenly divided. A J Faull suggests masturbation is harmless. R. Ainsworth suggests not trying to retract babies' foreskins. A H Williams is concerned that circumcision impairs the establishment of breastfeeding.

- R. Darby, A Surgical Temptation, p 304ff

1941

Sept

Alan Gutmacher writes in Parents' Magazine that some US doctors circumcise routinely without consulting parents, and that 75% of boys born in urban hospitals are circumcised.

1942

Aug

8

Battle of Guadalcanal. Mass circumcision of US soldiers in the Pacific in response to "an outbreak of phimosis and paraphimosis"! Military circumcisers Eugene A. Hand and Abraham Ravich promote circumcision to the masses through medical and popular journals after the war.

1942

Oct

23

Battle of El Alamein, allied offensive begins in Egypt, when some New Zealand (and other) soldiers are circumcised concurrently with widespread skin infection, giving rise to "sand under foreskin" myth. [Circumcision already heavily promoted in NZ, however.]

1946-7

British National Health Service set up, putting hospital doctors on salary and paying family doctors a flat rate per patient on their books. (Doctors were still free to circumcise, but they would no longer be paid any more for it.)

1949

Joseph Lewis's "In the Name of Humanity!" is published, perhaps the first outright condemnation of infant circumcision on humanitarian grounds.

1949

Dec

24

Douglas Gairdner

NORM-UK

D. Gairdner's paper "The Fate of the Foreskin" is published in the BMJ. This, coupled with the non-funding, led to a dramatic fall in the rate of circumcision in the UK.

1950

Jul

2

US troops land in South Korea. Under US influence, South Korea adopts boyhood circumcison.

1954

April

5

TIME magazine publishes Ernest Wynder's claim - since refuted - that smegma causes cervical cancer. TIME calls it a "comforting conclusion". The claim spreads widely.

1962

National Women's Hospital opens in Auckland, New Zealand (official opening February 14, 1964), as a publicly-funded-circumcision-free zone. This leads to a dramatic fall in the rate of circumcision in NZ.

1965

Jul

19

JAMA publishes Morgan's "The Rape of the Phallus" the first criticism of circumcision's murky psychology.

1966

Apr

27

Bungled circumcision of "John Thiessen" (Bruce, now David, Reimer) in Winnipeg leading to his sex-reassignment surgery (see Dec 11, 1997).

1968

 5

Gore Vidal publishes Myra Breckenridge, in which the title character denounces circumcision.

1970

Dec

16

Van Lewis and his brother Ben carry signs saying "Infant Circumcision is a Sex Crime. Abolish it." "Sex Criminals for Hire? Inquire Within." "Abolish Infant Circumcision." and "Men's Liberation" outside the Tallahassee Memorial Hospital, Tallahassee, Florida, and are arrested. They are charged with disturbing the peace and spend a day in the cells.

Van Lewis
in 2006

1971

American Academy of Pediatrics finds "no valid medical indications for routine infant circumcision."

1972

"Informed Consent" became required by law in the United States following the case of Canterbury v. Spence.
(Canterbury v. Spence, 464 F.2d 772, 789 (D.C. Cir. 1972))

'"People have to understand that circumcision must be stopped," Hopkins said. "We hope to see others take an interest in this. We can't do it alone." '

- Jeff de Long, "Common operation called 'grotesque thing' : Anti-circumcision group pickets 'censors' "
The Lumberjack, January 21, 1981

1985

Nurse Marilyn Milos is fired for advising parents against circumcision and founds NOCIRC (the Nat. Org. of Circumision Information Resource Centers).

Marilyn Fayre Milos

1988

Mar

California Med. Assoc. declares circumcision "an effective public health measure" on a voice vote, the resolution of urologist Aaron Fink.

1988

Dec

Canadian Paediatric Soc. reaffirms its stand against routine circumcision.

1989

Mar

1-3

First International Symposium on Circumcision, Anaheim, California adopts a declaration of bodily integrity, recognising an intact body as a basic human right.

1989

Mar

American Academy of Pediatrics suggests its 1971 stance on circumcision be re-examined, is widely misreported as having reversed its position.

1991

Apr
-
May

30
-
3

Second International Symposium on Circumcision, San Francisco, California. John Taylor describes the ridged band.

1992

More than 20 nurses of St Vincent Hospital, Santa Fe, NM, refuse to perform any more circumcisions. See what they say at YouTube.

1993

C. Maden et al.'s study of circumcision and cancer published in the JNCI. It showed penile cancer incidence (age for age) in proportion to circumcision and rising in proportion.

1993

Oct

Williams and Kapila's paper on risks and complications of circumcision is published in the BJS.

1994

Jan

Foreskin restoration list is started at M I T.

1994

May

22-25

Third International Symposium on Circumcision, Maryland.

1995

Feb

4

A. Taddio et al.'s first paper on circumcision pain published in The Lancet.

1995

Apr

Registered Nurses' Association of British Colombia votes to condemn routine infant circumcision of all sexes.

1995

Jun

Two of the nurses of St Vincent (see 1992), Mary Conant and Betty Katz Sperlich, found Nurses for the Rights of the Child.

1996

US outlaws FGM federally.

1996

R. Taylor et al.'s paper on the prepuce as specialised mucosa of the penis published in the B.J.Urol. It describes the highly innervated ridged bands.

1996

Canadian Paediatric Soc. Foetus and Newborn Cttee "does not support recommending circumcision as a routine procedure for newborns."

1996

Australian College of Paediatrics position statement: "...neonatal male circumcision has no medical indication..."

1996

Aug

11

Fourth International Symposium on Sexual Mutilations, Lausanne, Switzerland, passes the Ashley Montegu declaration and submits it to the World Court.

1997

Mar

1

A. Taddio et al.'s second paper on circumcision pain published in The Lancet. It shows pain of circumcision affects reaction to subsequent vaccination.

1997

Apr

2

Ed. O Laumann et al.'s study on circumcision and sexual practice and STDs published in JAMA. It shows circumcision does not prevent STDs, and correlates with more varied (stimulation-hungry?) sexual practice.

1997

Jun

3

Case of Fishbeck v. North Dakota (3:30) challenges FGM law as depriving boys of equal rights. Baby Fishbeck was circumcised contrary to his mother's wish. Case is lost.

1997

Dec

J. Lander et al.'s paper on pain published in JAMA It shows the pain of circumcision to be excruciating, and circumcision without anaesthetic was discontinued in the study for ethical reasons.

1997

Dec

11

"Rolling Stone" blows the whistle on Dr John Money's attempt at surgical sex-determination of "John/Joan/John".

1997

Dec

28

Egyptian High Court upholds a lower court ban on FGM.

1998

Aug

5-7

Fifth International Symposium on Genital Mutilation held at Oxford, England.

1998

Oct

16

Highly publicised death of baby Dustin Evans Jr in Cleveland, Ohio, under anaesthetic during repair of circumcision complications. Doctors were at pains to distance his death from his circumcision.

1998

Dec

5

To, et al.'s study of UTIs shows it would take 195 circumcisions to prevent one UTI. You can see my graphic illustration of this figure.

1999

Mar

1

The American Academy of Pediatrics issues a policy statement that the potential medical benefits of circumcision do not warrent performing it routinely, but that paediatricians may perform it at the parents' behest for "cultural, religious, and ethnic" reasons, and that analgesia is essential. On this site you can see that policy compared with their policy on Female Genital Mutilation.

1999

Mar

Medina General Hospital, Ohio, settles with parents who had sued for $10,000,000. Their son had the tip of his penis amputated during a "routine" circumcision..

1999

May

1

An English judge rules that a non-practising Muslim father may not have his son circumcised contrary to the mother's wishes, even though they had agreed to raise the child as Muslim. The ruling is upheld on November 26, the Court of Appeal saying "a newborn child does not share the conceptions of the parents" and "it [is] not in the best interests of the child to be circumcised, with its risk of pain and psychological damage which the boy would find hard to understand."

1999

Nov

20

The Lancet publishes Halperin and Bailey's editorial call for mass circumcision in Africa to prevent HIV spread. US media interpret it as a call for mass circumcision everywhere. Halperin tells the Bay Area Reporter in San Francisco on November 25, "If I were a top [insertive partner in anal sex], and didn't like to use condoms, I would consider getting circumcised." - contradicting his own advice in the editorial.

1999

Dec

26

Western Australian court awards $A360,000 to Shane Peterson, a 26 year old Perth man whose infant circumcision was botched. Shane has written his own account of his experiences.

2000

Feb

"Circumcision of healthy boys: Criminal assault?" by Boyle, Svoboda, Price, & Turner published in the Journal of Law & Medicine

2000

Mar

8

2000

Jul

6

2000

Oct

11

2000

Nov

2000

Dec

7-9

2000

Dec

19

2001

Jan

15

2001

Jan

16

2001

Jan

17

2001

Jan

25

2001

Feb

27

2001

Apr

1

2001

Apr

12

2001

May

11

2001

Jun

1

2001

Oct

1

2001

Nov

1

2002

Mar-Apr

2002

Jul

2

2002

Sept

27

2002

Oct

1

2002

Dec

2002

Dec

1

2003

Jan

1

2003

Feb

15

2003

Apr

4

2003

Apr

25

2003

Jul

1

2004

Feb

3

2004

Sept

2005

Jul

1

2005

Oct

25

2006

Aug

2007

Mar

2007

Mar

2007

Apr

2008

Sept

2009

Jun

2009

Jun

2010

Mar

2010

Mar

2010

Apr

2010

May

2010

May

2010

Mar

2010

Jul

2010

Nov

2011

May

2011

May

2011

Jun

2011

Jun

2011

Jun

2011

Jul

2011

Jul

2011

Jul

2011

Aug-Sep

2011

Sep

2012

June

25

Cologne District Court rules that non-therapeutic circumcision is "bodily harm".

2012

June

25

First Foreskin Pride march held, Victoria BC

2012

July

19

Bundestag resolves to pass law permitting religious circumcision.

2012

August

27

American Academy of Pediatrics' new policy claims "benefits outweigh risks" of circumcision

2012

September

25

Geman Justice Ministry draws up law allowing "medical" circumcision by non-doctors - no mention of religion.

2012

Sep-Oct

2012

October

27

Richard Duncker first wore "Bloodstained Man" overalls in a demonstration against male genital cutting outside the offices of the Ministry of Health building in Whitehall, London with a woman friend in plain white overalls illustrating the difference in protection of males and females under UK law. (Also present were Peter Ball, Patrick Smyth, Jim Hayes and Iris Fudge.) The imagery was taken up in Intactivist demonstrations worldwide.

2013

September

16-17

Thirteenth International Symposium on Genital Autonomy, Keele, UK. London QC James Chegwidden tells it that infant circumcision is already contrary to the law.

2013

September

30

Children's Ombudsmen of five Scandinavian countries, and several Danish political parties come out together against infant circumcision.

2013

September

30

Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe comes out against infant circumcision.

2015

March

30

Eighteenth anniversary of the passage of Federal law against female genital cutting. Males unequally protected turn 18. Let the lawsuits commence!

2015

May

8-9

Genital Autonomy 2015: Myths and Multiple Standards, Frankfurt, conference.

2016

September

14-16

14th International Symposium: Changing Global Perceptions: Child Protection & Bodily Integrity, Keele University, UK