The dragon dance goes back more than 2,000 years to Han-dynasty China, when people danced like dragons to call for rain. Today a team lifts the long dragon on poles, and parade dragons can be up to 100 metres long.
📍 Worcester, Massachusetts, USA
Candlepin bowling, with thin pins and a ball that fits in your palm, began around 1880 in Worcester, Massachusetts. You get three rolls per frame, and the knocked-down pins stay on the lane.
📍 Harrow (London), England
Squash began around 1830 at Harrow School in London, when pupils noticed that a punctured ball, which “squashed” against the wall, made the old game of rackets far more varied.
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📍 Eastern United States (New York to the South)
Tap dance grew up in the United States, where African American dance met Irish jigs and English clogs. A pioneer was William Henry Lane, "Master Juba", who grew up in New York's Five Points in the 1830s and grafted African American rhythms onto jig dancing.
📍 Tian Shan, Central Asia
The apple's wild ancestor, Malus sieversii, still grows in Central Asia's Tian Shan mountains, where apples were first domesticated before travelling along the Silk Road to Europe.
📍 Malay Archipelago (Java, Borneo & Sumatra)
Orangutan is Malay orang 'person' + hutan 'forest': the person of the forest. A Dutch physician first printed it for the ape in 1631. Wild orangutans now live only on Borneo and Sumatra.
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📍 Northern India
Today most wild cheetahs live in Africa, but their name is Hindi: chītā, from a Sanskrit word meaning 'variegated' or 'speckled'. Cheetahs were once abundant in India, and English borrowed the word by 1704.