Game
Where does Cribbage come from?
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.
More Games & sports
Game
Pétanque
📍 La Ciotat, France
Pétanque was born in La Ciotat, near Marseille, around 1907–1910, when rheumatic player Jules Lenoir could no longer run before throwing. Its name comes from Provençal for “feet planted”.
Game
Playing cards
📍 China
Playing cards were most likely invented in Tang-dynasty China around the 9th century, helped by woodblock printing. They reached Europe much later, probably via Mamluk Egypt, by the 1370s.
Game
Rugby league
📍 Huddersfield, England
Rugby league was born on 29 August 1895 at the George Hotel in Huddersfield, when 22 northern English clubs broke away so they could pay players for wages lost to Saturday matches.
More from Europe
Food
Peach Melba
📍 London (the Savoy), England
French chef Auguste Escoffier created Peach Melba at London's Savoy Hotel in 1892 or 1893 to honour Australian soprano Nellie Melba, then starring at Covent Garden.
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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.
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.