By Bethanne Patrick, John Thompson
ISBN-10: 1426204205
ISBN-13: 9781426204203
Someday approximately 30,000 years in the past, anyone caught a pointy rock right into a cut up stickand presto! The awl used to be born. Our inquisitive species simply loves tinkering, checking out, and pushing the bounds, and this delightfully assorted publication is a freewheeling connection with hundreds of thousands of customs, notions, and innovations that replicate human ingenuity all through history.
From hand instruments to vacation trips to guns to washing machines, An unusual background of universal Things gains thousands of colourful illustrations, timelines, sidebars, and extra because it explores with reference to each topic below the solar. Who knew that indoor plumbing has been round for 4,600 years, yet punctuation, capital letters, and the convenient areas among written phrases basically date again to the darkish a while? Or that historical squaddies baked one of those pizza on their shieldswhen they weren’t busy flying kites to frighten their foes?
Every web page of this quirky compendium catalogs whatever attention-grabbing, wonderful, or serendipitous. a full of life, incomparably browsable learn for background buffs, popular culture enthusiasts, and someone who relishes the ordinary and awesome info hidden within the daily, it is going to tell, amuse, astonishand regulate how you take into consideration the smart creatures we name people.
Read or Download An Uncommon History of Common Things PDF
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Extra resources for An Uncommon History of Common Things
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Peanut Butter ORIGINAL INVENTORS: INCAS 89 PERCENT OF AMERICANS EAT PEANUT BUTTER NUMBER ONE PEANUT-GROWING STATE: GEORGIA You probably learned in school that African-American agricultural chemist George Washington Carver “invented” peanut butter. It’s true that Carver, who figured out 300 different uses for the peanut, discovered that when ground into a paste, peanuts were delicious and filling. However, Carver did not believe in patenting his findings. “God gave them to me,” he would say about his ideas.
Koszorus, Director of Design Barbara Brownell Grogan, Executive Editor Elizabeth Newhouse, Director of Travel Publishing Carl Mehler, Director of Maps Staff for This Book Susan Straight, Editor Susan Hitchcock, Consulting Editor Patricia C. Click, Consultant Cliff Owen, Illustrations Editor Carol Norton, Art Director Sanaa Akkach, Designer Judy Klein and Anne Cherry, Copy Editors Trudy Pearson and Carol Stroud, Researchers Tiffin Thompson, Editorial Assistant Al Morrow, Design Assistant Jennifer A.
The “wafer,” as medieval people called it, was cooked between hinged metal plates often embossed with heraldic symbols. Today, the waffle’s indented pattern (source of the term “waffling,” both for fabric and for back-and-forth behavior) provides nooks for toppings. Breakfast Cereal THE TOP FOUR MANUFACTURERS ACCOUNT FOR MORE THAN 80% OF INDUSTRY REVENUE: KELLOGG, GENERAL MILLS, POST, AND QUAKER Cold breakfast cereals composed of flakes were invented in the United States (see Parallel History), but breakfasts of different kinds of grains have been consumed for many thousands of years.
An Uncommon History of Common Things by Bethanne Patrick, John Thompson
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