The Book of Origins
Discover the Amazing Origins of the Clothes We Wear, the Food We Eat, the PeopleWe Know, the Languages We Speak, and the Things We Use| By: | Trevor Homer |
| Publisher: | Penguin US |
| Print ISBN: | 9780452288324 |
| eText ISBN: | 9781101041925 |
| Edition: | 0 |
| Format: | Reflowable |
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Everything—from the mundane (the pencil) to the catastrophic (the atom bomb)—has an origin, but often it’s not what we expect. A few things you may not have known: • Gandhi was married at age thirteen! • Chinese fortune cookies are an American invention and were not eaten in China until the 1990s when they were advertised as “Genuine American Fortune Cookies.” • Bayer lost the trademark for aspirin (which they had held since 1897) as part of the reparations Germany was forced to pay after World War I. • The original idea for the electric chair came from an American dentist. For aspiring mindblowers and wanna-be know-it-alls, The Book of Origins is a treasure trove of trivia and fascinating facts guaranteed to entertain and enlighten.