Nature
Where does Great Dane (dog breed) come from?
Despite its name, the Great Dane is a German breed with no known link to Denmark. Germans call it the Deutsche Dogge; the 'Dane' comes from its French name, grand danois.
More Animals & plants
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Nature
Merino sheep
📍 Iberian Peninsula
Merino sheep were developed in medieval Spain, which guarded the fine-wool breed as a monopoly: smuggling one out could mean death. Merinos only reached Australia in 1797, via South Africa.
Nature
Chrysanthemum (garden mum)
📍 China
Garden chrysanthemums were bred in China for many centuries before they reached Japan. There the flower became the emperor's emblem, which is why the Japanese monarchy is called the Chrysanthemum Throne.
Nature
Golden hamster (the pet hamster)
📍 Near Aleppo, Syria
In 1930 zoologist Israel Aharoni caught a mother hamster and her litter near Aleppo, Syria. DNA studies show all domestic golden hamsters descend from one female, probably that very mother.
More from Europe
Game
Cribbage
📍 England
Cribbage grew out of noddy, an old English card game, and the poet Sir John Suckling is credited with inventing it in the early 1600s. Points are scored by moving pegs along a wooden board full of holes.
Game
Netball
📍 London, England
Netball grew out of basketball at a women's PE college in Hampstead, London, from 1893, and its first rules were published in England in 1901. It then spread across the British Empire.
Invention
Kaleidoscope
📍 Edinburgh, Scotland
Scottish physicist David Brewster discovered the effect while experimenting with light around 1815 and patented the toy in 1817, naming it from Greek words for 'beautiful form' and 'to look'.