Today we think of origami, the art of folding paper, as a Japanese craft. But the skill originally came from China, where it was the custom to make household items from paper so that they could be burnt at a person’s funeral and that person could have the objects in the after life. The art reached Japan in the seventh …

The dodo was rather a stupid bird. Indeed, it was so stupid that it was named dodo by the Portuguese when they discovered Mauritius-its home-in 1507. The Portuguese word dodo means stupid. Mauritius is an island, 70 square miles in area and lying 500 miles to the east of Madagascar in the Indian Ocean. Until the arrival of man, with …

Time is measured east and west of the prime meridian (00 longitude), an imaginary line that passes through Greenwich, England. East of Greenwich, the time advances by one hour for every 150 of longitude. To the west, one hour is lost for every 150 of longitude. At 1800 East, the time is 12 hours ahead of Greenwich, while at 1800 …

A newly-hatched crocodile is about eight inches long and can be found on the mud near the water’s edge of marshes, rivers, estuaries and lakes around the tropical regions of the world. For it is here that the female lays her eggs and buried them-to 70 at a time-in holes in the warm mud. Each of the hard-shelled eggs is …

Some sharks may attack human beings if attracted by under water noises, erratic swimming, the presence of a large number of bathers, or the glint of jewellery or some other article. But probably the greatest provocation to a shark is the presence of blood, for instance from a speared fish or live bait. Sharks are most likely to attack during …

The first comic book was Famous Funnies, which first appeared in 1934. The first comic book, Superman, landed on newsstands in 1939. Comic books are single square newspaper cartoons that have grown up. From cartoons came comic strips, which are three or four squares long.

The American bison were near to extinction by 1990, although they numbered more than 60 million when the white man first arrived in their feeding grounds. Buffalo, as the bison were commonly called, were the prime essential of the Plains Indian’s economy. The powerful animal’s meat, bones, and hide provided the Indians with food, medicine, clothing and shelter. At first …

The exact time the first wristwatch appeared is not known. But soon after the beginning of the 20th Century women’s small pocket watches began to be fitted into specially made leather or gold adapters to be worn on the wrist. They were immediately successful, and then popularity rapidly increased in the First World War because they could be consulted without …

We do not know when the tea plant was first cultivated, but the earliest mention of it occurs in a Chinese dictionary, the Erh Ya about the year 350. The cultivation of tea is believed to have begun in the province of Szechwan in central China. From there its cultivation and use as a beverage spread throughout China and Japan …

The first kindergarten was started by German educator Friedrich Froebel in 1837 in Blankenburg, Prussia. Froebel chose the German term kindergarten because he intended children in his school to grow as freely as flowers in a garden. Froebel based his educational philosophy on a belief in the innate creativity of children. His kindergarten stressed that children should spend part of …