Nature
Where does Horse chestnut (conker tree) come from?
The conker tree of British playgrounds is a Balkan native: wild horse chestnuts survive only in a few mountain forests of northern Greece, Albania and nearby. Everywhere else, it was planted.
More Animals & plants
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.
Nature
Bird-of-paradise flower (Strelitzia)
📍 Eastern Cape & KwaZulu-Natal coast, South Africa
Bird-of-paradise flowers grow wild along South Africa's eastern coast, where sunbirds perching on the blue petals get pollen dusted onto their feet. Joseph Banks named the plant after Queen Charlotte, Duchess of Mecklenburg-Strelitz.
Nature
Bougainvillea
📍 South America (Brazil & neighbours)
Bougainvillea, the flower of Mediterranean balconies, is a South American native that grows wild from Brazil to Peru and Argentina. It is named after French explorer Louis-Antoine de Bougainville, whose expedition recorded it.
More from Europe
Invention
Eyeglasses
📍 Tuscany (Pisa–Florence), Italy
Spectacles appeared in Tuscany around 1290: in a 1306 sermon a Pisan friar said the art of making them was not yet 20 years old. The tale that Marco Polo saw glasses in China is a myth; Chinese sources say they were imported.
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.
Game
Squash
📍 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.