chocolate into the cookie dough. Wakefield thought the chocolate would melt and spread throughout as the cookies baked, but she soon found out otherwise. The chocolate bits held their shape and created a sensation she called Toll House Crunch Cookies. The cookies soon became very popular, and Wakefield’s recipe was published in papers throughout the New England area. In 1939, the cookie became nationally known when Betty Crocker used it in her radio series, “Famous Foods from Famous Eating Places.”
Chopsticks
The widespread use of chopsticks has been traced to around 500 B.C.E. during the time of Confucius. (Although the first chopsticks may have been simple twigs used to spear a roast over an open fire 5,000 years ago.) The precise origins of using a pair of chopsticks to hold and take food to the mouth are unknown, but we do know they were invented in China. The chopsticks of Confucius’s time were probably made of bamboo, and they paired well with the Chinese cooking method of cutting food into tiny pieces.
Christmas Card
John Calcott Horsley designed the first commercial Christmas card in 1843 in London, England. Wealthy businessman Sir Henry Cole, founder of the Victoria and Albert Museum, commissioned the design. The card was a picture of an old English festivity that showed a family toasting the season. One thousand cards were printed lithographically and hand painted by an artist named Mason. They were on a single piece of pasteboard measuring 5x3¼ inches and displayed the message, “A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to You.” Cole used as many as he personally desired (around half) before selling the rest at 1 shilling each.
Circus
Circuses have been around since the time of the ancient Romans. Around 75 B.C.E., the emperor Pompey held spectacular shows full of lions, elephants, and chariot racing. These ancient circuses also featured slaves fighting to their deaths in quest of freedom and also dangerous duels with live animals. It was a spectacle of entertainment where the masses flocked to eagerly watch the happenings.
Civil Service Exam
Around 124 B.C.E. in ancient China, the Han dynasty introduced the first civil service exams. During this time, an imperial university and a system of schools were founded to teach Confucian political and social ideologies to students pursuing a career in government. Candidates were chosen by written examinations that took place over a series of days. Scribes copied potential students’ answers to conceal the identity of the candidates from the examiners. The appointments to the schools were made, and the responsibilities were awarded based on demonstrated talent and ability. This was the first system of meritocracy.
Clock
Around 3000 B.C.E., the ancient Egyptians developed the first clocks in the form of sundials. To make the device, the Egyptians used gnomons, or shadow sticks. These were vertical sticks, or stakes, placed in the ground and used to indicate time by the length and direction of their shadow. The Egyptians next developed a more advanced sundial by placing a T-shape bar in the ground. This device was calibrated to divide the interval between the sunrise and sunset into 12 parts.
Cloned Animal
Born on July 5, 1996, Dolly the Sheep was the world’s first successfully cloned healthy animal. She lived until the age of 6 and was dubbed “the world’s most famous sheep.” The donor cell for the cloning was taken from a sheep’s mammary gland. Using the process of nuclear transfer, it took 277 tries to effectively clone Dolly. The eventual successful cloning proved that a cell taken from a specific body part could re-create a whole individual. Ian Wilmut, Keith Campbell, and their colleagues at the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh, Scotland, facilitated the cloning process. They had to take a cell, deprogram it, and then implant the resulting embryo. Dolly did not die from any deformations of cloning, by the way. It was progressive lung
Chopsticks
The widespread use of chopsticks has been traced to around 500 B.C.E. during the time of Confucius. (Although the first chopsticks may have been simple twigs used to spear a roast over an open fire 5,000 years ago.) The precise origins of using a pair of chopsticks to hold and take food to the mouth are unknown, but we do know they were invented in China. The chopsticks of Confucius’s time were probably made of bamboo, and they paired well with the Chinese cooking method of cutting food into tiny pieces.
Christmas Card
John Calcott Horsley designed the first commercial Christmas card in 1843 in London, England. Wealthy businessman Sir Henry Cole, founder of the Victoria and Albert Museum, commissioned the design. The card was a picture of an old English festivity that showed a family toasting the season. One thousand cards were printed lithographically and hand painted by an artist named Mason. They were on a single piece of pasteboard measuring 5x3¼ inches and displayed the message, “A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to You.” Cole used as many as he personally desired (around half) before selling the rest at 1 shilling each.
Circus
Circuses have been around since the time of the ancient Romans. Around 75 B.C.E., the emperor Pompey held spectacular shows full of lions, elephants, and chariot racing. These ancient circuses also featured slaves fighting to their deaths in quest of freedom and also dangerous duels with live animals. It was a spectacle of entertainment where the masses flocked to eagerly watch the happenings.
Civil Service Exam
Around 124 B.C.E. in ancient China, the Han dynasty introduced the first civil service exams. During this time, an imperial university and a system of schools were founded to teach Confucian political and social ideologies to students pursuing a career in government. Candidates were chosen by written examinations that took place over a series of days. Scribes copied potential students’ answers to conceal the identity of the candidates from the examiners. The appointments to the schools were made, and the responsibilities were awarded based on demonstrated talent and ability. This was the first system of meritocracy.
Clock
Around 3000 B.C.E., the ancient Egyptians developed the first clocks in the form of sundials. To make the device, the Egyptians used gnomons, or shadow sticks. These were vertical sticks, or stakes, placed in the ground and used to indicate time by the length and direction of their shadow. The Egyptians next developed a more advanced sundial by placing a T-shape bar in the ground. This device was calibrated to divide the interval between the sunrise and sunset into 12 parts.
Cloned Animal
Born on July 5, 1996, Dolly the Sheep was the world’s first successfully cloned healthy animal. She lived until the age of 6 and was dubbed “the world’s most famous sheep.” The donor cell for the cloning was taken from a sheep’s mammary gland. Using the process of nuclear transfer, it took 277 tries to effectively clone Dolly. The eventual successful cloning proved that a cell taken from a specific body part could re-create a whole individual. Ian Wilmut, Keith Campbell, and their colleagues at the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh, Scotland, facilitated the cloning process. They had to take a cell, deprogram it, and then implant the resulting embryo. Dolly did not die from any deformations of cloning, by the way. It was progressive lung
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