Short answers, pulled from the story.
The first known instance of human cremation occurred 17,000 years ago at Lake Mungo in Australia, where the remains of the Mungo Lady were partially burned. This ancient practice predates written history by millennia and suggests that fire was used to dispose of the dead long before the development of complex religious systems.
The first crematorium in the Western World opened in Milan in 1876, marking a pivotal moment in the history of death disposal. This facility, known as the Crematorium Temple, was built in the Monumental Cemetery and still stands today, though it ceased to be operational in 1992.
The Roman Catholic Church lifted its ban on the practice in 1963 at the Second Vatican Council, and Pope Paul VI allowed Catholic priests to officiate at cremation ceremonies in 1966, provided the ashes were buried or interred, not scattered. This shift marked a significant turning point, as cremation began to gain varying degrees of acceptance in most Christian denominations.
A modern cremator is an industrial furnace that is able to generate temperatures of 1400 to 1800 degrees Celsius to ensure the disintegration of the corpse. The chamber where the body is placed is called a cremation chamber or retort and is lined with heat-resistant refractory bricks, designed in several layers.
Japan reported a 99.97% cremation rate in 2018, while Romania reported a rate of 0.5% in 2018. These statistics reflect a global shift in attitudes toward death disposal, with cremation becoming more common than burial in several countries where the latter is traditional.