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Plume

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

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

Book Details
  • Author: Trevor Homer
  • Binding: Paperback
  • Publisher: Plume
  • Published: 2007-05-29
  • Edition: Illustrated
$6.95 USD
$6.95 USD
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Read Trevor Homer's posts on the Penguin Blog.

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.

The More Than Words double bottom line: Every purchase provides hands on job training opportunities, and all revenue supports our nonprofit to empower youth to take charge of their lives.

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