When was corrugated cardboard first used? Corrugated cardboard was first used as a liner for top hats. Corrugated cardboard is commonly used for making cardboard boxes and if you have ever ordered anything from Amazon, you will have handled some. It consists of a corrugated sheet sandwiched between two linerboards. The corrugated layer gives it […]
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When did people first start using locks and keys? Keys and locks were first used about 6,000 years ago. The earliest lock that has been found so far was 6,000 years old and was found in the ruins of Nineveh, the capital of ancient Assyria. The fact that a fully formed lock was discovered means
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When did we start using tarmac on roads? Tarmac (asphalt) only really became popular once the motorcar was invented. Once you know that, it seems obvious, but it never really occurred to me. We have had roads for thousands of years longer than we have had tarmac. The first roads were created when people started
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What is & called and why? The symbol “&” is called the ampersand, which actually means “and, by itself, and”. It is also a shorthand version of the Latin word “et”. These days, we use the ampersand as a symbol for “and”. It is also used in programming language. It is not generally acceptable to
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When did people start wearing wristwatches? People started wearing wristwatches during World War 1. Clocks had been around for some time before the first watches appeared in the 15th century, in Europe. Several advancements were necessary before clocks could be made small enough to be a watch. Clocks generally worked by using a system of weights
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When did the last woolly mammoth disappear? A population of woolly mammoths survived on Wrangel Island until about 2000 BC, about 500 years after the Great Pyramid of Giza was built. Woolly mammoths appeared in Siberia about 700,000 years ago. They were the same size as a modern African Elephant: up to 3.4 m at
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How long have humans been using rope? Prehistoric man started using rope over 50,000 years ago. Rope is an incredibly important invention in the history of humankind. We might not think about it now because we have nails, screws, Velcro, wood, solder, and a hundred other ways to keep things together, but prehistoric people only
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Why is New York called New York? New York is called New York because it was named in honor of the British Duke of York. Before European people colonized the Americas, the Algonquian speaking Native Americans lived in the area where New York is now. The Algonquian speaking people were the largest indigenous group in North
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How did the neck verse save people from being hanged in England? The benefit of clergy was known as the neck verse and it was an English law that allowed people to escape hanging if they could memorize Psalm 51:3. Latin: “Miserere mei, Deus, secundum misericordiam tuam; et secundum multitudinem miserationum tuarum dele iniquitatem meam.”
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Why are traffic lights red, yellow, and green? Because they cannot be mistaken for each other and we have learned that red means danger and green means go. When they were invented, traffic lights used white to mean “go”, green for “caution” and red for “stop”. The first traffic lights were not made for cars.
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