The Book of Origins: Discover the Amazing Origins of the Clothes We Wear, the Food We Eat, the PeopleWe Know, the Languages We Speak, and the Things We Use

Author/Contributor(s):	Homer, Trevor
Publisher:	Plume
Date:	5/29/2007
Binding:	Paperback
Condition:	NEW

Everything—from the mundane (the pencil) to the catastrophic (the atom bomb)—has an origin, but often it’s not what we expect. A few things you may not have known:

• Gandhi was married at age thirteen!
• Chinese fortune cookies are an American invention and were not eaten in China until the 1990s when they were advertised as “Genuine American Fortune Cookies.”
• Bayer lost the trademark for aspirin (which they had held since 1897) as part of the reparations Germany was forced to pay after World War I.
• The original idea for the electric chair came from an American dentist.

For aspiring mindblowers and wanna-be know-it-alls, The Book of Origins is a treasure trove of trivia and fascinating facts guaranteed to entertain and enlighten.