.jpg/960px-%22Ewe_lookin_at_me_kid........%22%3F_(51396500853).jpg)
Nature
Where does Merino sheep come from?
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.
More Animals & plants
Nature
Pearl millet
📍 Western Sahel (northern Mali)
Pearl millet was first farmed on the southern edge of the Sahara, around today's northern Mali, more than 4,000 years ago. It later spread to India, which now grows more of it than any other country.
Nature
Dahlia
📍 Central Mexico highlands
Almost every wild dahlia species grows only in Mexico, the genus's home and centre of diversity. Spanish botanist Antonio José Cavanilles named the flower in 1791 after the Swedish botanist Anders Dahl.
Nature
Horse chestnut (conker tree)
📍 Mountains of northern Greece & Albania
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 from Europe
.jpg/330px-Spray_Paint_Cans_Berlin_(Unsplash).jpg)
Invention
Aerosol spray can
📍 Oslo, Norway
Norwegian chemical engineer Erik Rotheim of Oslo applied for the first aerosol spray can patent in 1926. Americans later made spray cans famous with WWII 'bug bombs' that sprayed insecticide against malaria mosquitoes.
Word
Jeans (the word)
📍 Genoa, Italy
Jeans goes back to Genoa (Gênes in French): English merchants called a hard-wearing fustian cloth from the Italian port 'Gene fustian', later just 'jean', and were importing it in bulk by the 1500s.
Invention
Stethoscope
📍 Paris, France
French doctor René Laennec invented it in 1816 at a Paris hospital, after noticing that a rolled-up sheet of paper carried heart sounds to his ear. His first version was a simple wooden tube.