My Science School

 

               The oldest fabric discovered was a piece of linen dating from around 6500 BC. It was found inside a cave in the Judean Desert, preserved by the dry air. Linen is made from fibrous flax plants. Ancient Egyptians collected dried and bundled flax plants from the banks of the Nile River.

               The process of making the fabric was lengthy. First, the seeds were removed before the plants were soaked in water. Later, they would be beaten, washed, spun, and woven. To bleach their linen, Egyptians used sunlight. The natural state of the fabric is a dull grey-brown. White linen was considered a symbol of purity for the Egyptians, and later for the Romans.

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               Many years before pasteurisation was discovered, the French inventor Nicolas Appert found a method of sterilizing foods by keeping them in glass Jars and heating them. It was actually a form of pasteurization as he heated the food to kill bacteria in it.

               Appert’s jars were soon replaced by cans made out of tin plate. Peter Durand received the first patent for the idea of canned food. First it was introduced in the UK, and later in 1818 it was introduced in the US.

              Initially cans were completely sealed except for a small opening knob on the top. Before soldering the food was heated to boiling point. Then the cans were reheated. The earlier versions of cans were not safe at that time. However, canning food was cheap and convenient. It gained popularity very easily.

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               Even primitive cave men used to eat dried meat. They hung mammoth carcasses to dry in the wind, and then took them inside for cool storage. Syrians, Iranians, and Palestinians started using dried cereals, figs, and grapes by 8000 BC.

               It was during the 3rd millennium BC that salt was first used to preserve game birds and fish in the Nile valley. During the Iron Age itself, Britons started salting their foods in order to preserve them during the intense winter.

               A special brine of salt was made and used by the Egyptians to pickle meat. Sauerkraut, made by fermenting shredded cabbage, was the first form of pickle in Europe. However, sauerkraut lost its demand in Europe gradually. Later, the Chinese introduced the famous pickled cabbage called kimchi.

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               The cultivation of the cocoa tree began over 3,000 years ago by the Mayan, Toltec, and Aztec people. They were experts in making ceremonial beverages using cocoa beans. They also used the cocoa bean as currency. The Mayans considered chocolate to be the food of the gods.

               In Europe Spain was the first country to produce chocolate. However, at that time chocolate was enjoyed as a beverage. Chocolates in solid form were first made by Italian and French confectioners. Later, Italians started making them into rolls and slices. In 1819, Francois-Louis Cailler became the first person to produce chocolates in a factory.

               It was in 1876 that the first white chocolate was made by Daniel Peter of Switzerland. He added dried milk to make milk chocolate. Later, many varieties of chocolates were made all over the world.

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               Coffee as a beverage was quite popular among the Arabs during the 15th century. However, it is believed that coffee was first introduced in Yemen, during the 10th century.

               The ancient Ethiopians used to carry balls made of crushed coffee beans and fat during long journeys. It was only in 1644 that coffee became popular in parts of Europe, beginning with France. Britain’s first coffee-house, The Angel, opened in Oxford in 1650.

               Originally, coffee of the best quality came from Yemen’s Mocha and Aden regions. However, in the early 17th century, plants were introduced from there into the Dutch colony of Java in Indonesia, and into French colonies in the Indian Ocean.

               During the 18th century, coffee arrived in the Americas. The Arabs were exceptionally keen on coffee making. They mixed coffee and water, heated several times to boiling point, and left the ground beans to settle before drinking. This made the coffee taste richer. It was in France, during the 18th century, that the first proper coffee making utensil was developed. It was a two sectioned device, which could separate the ground beans and hot water, to produce a smoother drink.

               Later, the device became popularly known as cafeteria. In 1806, Count Rumford devised the true coffee percolator.

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               The interesting story about the origin of tea goes like this- once the Chinese emperor Shen Nung was relaxing under a tree, while his servants were boiling water for him to drink. The emperor, who was a renowned herbalist, noticed that some leaves from the tree fell into the water accidentally. Shen Nung told his servants that he would like to try the flavour of that accidentally created drink. The tree was Camellia sinensis, which is native to the foothills of the Himalayas, and the drink made was what we now call tea.

               It is believed that the Chinese first gathered the leaves from the wild, and only in AD 350 did they started cultivating tea plants. Soon, tea became popular in the Far East. There was even a popular tea ceremony in Japan during the 15th century. The Dutch and Portuguese popularized tea among the Europeans in the 16th century.

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            From 3000 BC onwards Indians started refining sugar. Many imperial convoys used to visit India in order to learn how sugar is produced. It is said that the soldiers of Alexander the Great, who invaded India in 327 BC, were the first Europeans to taste sugar.

            The exact origin of sugar is still under dispute. Some theories say it was first found in the Bay of Bengal, and others say the Solomon Islands were where it was first found. However, Indians were the first to cultivate sugar cane.

            During the 5th century BC, the Arabs started making loaves out of sugar from India. It was around AD 800, when Arabs conquered Spain, that sugar was commercialized in parts of Europe. Later, sugar became a part of the kitchens of the wealthy Europeans. Soon, the European powers started cultivating sugar cane in their colonies.

            By the 18th century, all economic classes started using sugar in their day-to-day cooking. Initially, it was used in sweetening dishes. Later, sugar became an essential part of drinks and food like coffee, tea, cakes and biscuits.

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               Salt was a precious commodity among the ancient Jews, Greeks, Chinese and Hittites. The Assyrians were the first people to use salt in the military practice of salting the earth. Later, this was adopted by many others.

               It was in the present-day Austrian town of Hallstatt, near Salzburg (Salt Town), during the 1st millennium BC, that the very first salt mine in Europe was established. In Britain, the deliberate production of salt was first practiced in the early Iron Age by the Celts.

               Salt, obviously, had high demand, and became a powerful commodity in the entire world economy easily. Some of the world’s earliest trade routes linked sources of salt to human settlements. Moreover, salt resources gradually became the ultimate factor in determining the location of the world’s great cities. Liverpool is an excellent example. It rose from being just an English port, to become the prime port for its salt export.

               The nomads of Central Asia were the ones who first tried out milk. However, they used to drink milk from mares (a female horse) as cows were not yet domesticated. Gradually, the herdsmen learnt to milk sheep, goats, and donkeys soon after 9000 BC.

               Cow’s milk was a common drink in Neolithic Britain. Ancient Europeans preferred soured milk. They found that concentrating milk by evaporating it would help to preserve the milk longer. They used different kinds of sweeteners too.

               Until 1852, when an American named Gail Borden introduced canned condensed milk for the first time, sweetened milk was not widely accepted. Borden’s canned version gradually caught on, especially with soldiers in the American Civil War.

               It was the French biologist Louis Pasteur who introduced the process called pasteurization, a method to kill bacteria in food and drinks especially milk. It’s said that during his investigations into the souring process of wine and beer, Pasteur developed this process.

               In 1860 he pasteurized milk for the first time. The process became popular only after 1890s.

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            Ice itself was something very difficult to make during the early days. So water ices and ice creams were luxurious dishes prepared for wealthy rulers. It was during the 1st millennium AD that the Chinese started to try out different fruit-flavoured cold drinks and desserts, using snow and ice. Later, the Persians and Arabs followed this method to make shaved snow and pour flavoured syrups on top of it. These were called sherbets.

            Water ices became popular in parts of Europe during the 1660s. It is said that the very first time when ice cream was served in England, at Windsor Castle in May 1671, Charles II was presented a plate of ice-cream with an equal portion of white strawberries. Kulfi is the most popular traditional frozen dairy dessert from the Indian subcontinent. Kulfis were first made for Mughal emperors during the 16th century.

            Though there have been many varieties of ice-cream cones initially, the most appealing version of ice-cream cones were made by a man named Ernest A. Hamwi, in 1904, in the US.

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            It is thought that butter might have initially been made by ancient Asian nomads while travelling with containers of milk. The movement of the caravan might have churned the milk to produce butter.

            However, the name butter takes its origin from the Greek word bouturon, which means cow cheese. Even though the Greeks knew about butter, they never used it as food, but as medicine.

            It is said that the Celts might have introduced butter in Britain during the pre-Roman Iron Age. They even found a method to preserve butter by adding salt. Ancient records show that for preserving 4.5 kg of butter, almost 450 g of salt was added to it. But interestingly, before eating the butter some salt was washed off. The butter was then kneaded with water and the liquid pummeled out.

            Butter has been a part of Indian cooking since time immemorial. Butter was a very expensive commodity back then.

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            A hairdryer is an electrical device for drying a person’s damp hair by a process of blowing warm air over it. The first model of a hairdryer was developed by Alexander Godefroy in 1890, for use in his salon in France.

           However, this model was not portable. Another drawback was that it couldn’t be used by holding in the hands; a person had to sit underneath it to get his hair dried.

            The first handheld hairdryer for daily use was developed in 1920. Even these ones had a major drawback- they were very heavy, weighing approximately 0.9 kg. Another major change was made in 1954 when GEC made the motor inside the casing adjustable. The bonnet dryer was introduced to consumers in 1951.

            During the 1950s, the rigid-hood hairdryer was introduced. It had a hard plastic helmet that wraps around the person’s head. Actually, the basic mechanism of a hairdryer has never been changed. The only change was made in the matter of convenience, like how plastic was used in order to make them lightweight.

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               The very first formal calendar dates back to the Bronze Age. Since scribbling and documenting started during the ancient era, many forms of calendars were developed. The Sumerian calendar was the earliest, followed by the Egyptian, Assyrian and Elamite calendars.

               In the ancient Sumerian calendars a year was divided into 12 lunar months of 29 or 30 days, where each month began with the sighting of a new moon.

               Another popular, historical calendar was the Julian calendar, which was reformed by Julius Caesar in 46 BC.

               A major calendar reform was led by Khayyam in Persia during the 11th century when, measuring the length of the year was prudently fashioned to 365.24219858156 days. Later, the first calendars based on Zoroastrian cosmology appeared somewhere between 650 to 330 BC.

               The Gregorian calendar is the most widely used international calendar. It is a more clarified version of the Julian calendar.

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            Glass was accidentally discovered around 3000 BC by Middle Eastern nomads while camping on a lake-side.

            They found chips of glass in the soil, which were actually created by the chemical reaction between silica content in the soil, and sodium carbonate deposits from the waters of the lake during higher temperatures.

            The oldest-known glass artefacts of consistently high quality date back to approximately 1500 BC when Egyptians made hollow glass by forming a core from a bag of sand or a lump of clay, attaching it to a metal rod and then covering it in molten glass. When the glass cooled, the clay was removed.

            However, glass vessels and utensils came into being nearly three centuries later. A glass maker in Syria discovered that a blob of glass at the end of a tube could be blown into a vessel of almost any shape.

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            Different forms of adhesives were used by primitive men. Many excavations have revealed that early humans used bitumen, a natural glue, to attach stones and wooden blocks. Bitumen is used even now for surfacing roads and waterproofing roofs. Bitumen’s waterproofing qualities were utilized by shipwrights in Babylon and Mesopotamia as early as 2400 BC, in order to caulk their ships.

            The Egyptians produced a variety of glues by boiling animal skin, bone and sinew, which are used by traditional carpenters even now. Other natural adhesives used since earliest times include beeswax, egg white, gum, resin and starch pastes etc.

            Natural rubber-based sticky adhesives were first manufactured by Henry Day in 1845. Interestingly, Eastman Kodak’s researchers discovered Super-glue accidentally in the 1950s. They were first sold in Britain in the mid-1970s. Superglue is well known for its tighter grip.

            Varieties of synthetic adhesives are still being developed, with the ever evolving, new technologies.