An egg may seem like a very simple thing to you, but producing it is quite a complicated process. In a bird, the first thing that forms is the yellow, or yolk, of the egg. This is formed within the reproductive organ of the bird or ovary.

The yellow br...

Every country, every part of the world, has some food that is peculiar to it. But there is one food that is eaten wherever man lives-and that is some form of bread.

This is because man has realized the value of cereal grains in his diet from the e...

The first man to use a crude kind of fork for eating probably lived thousands of years ago. But the everyday use of forks in dining is a very recent development in the history of man. The primitive savage used a small pronged twig as a kind of natural fork -to pick ...

Today, many of the world's leading statesmen and other famous people wear spectacles. It would be interesting to wonder if the course of history would be different if some of the statesmen of the past wore spectacles-that is, if they needed them. Perhaps empero...

Nobody looks good when he has some teeth missing. Besides, it some­times interferes very seriously with eating and chewing. So, man decided long ago that when he lost his natural teeth for one reason or another, they should be replaced. Substituting artificial...

The word "hat" itself gives us a clue as to why hats first began to be worn. It comes from the old Anglo-Saxon word heat, which means "to cover." Incidentally, from this same word came the words "house" and "hut."

The hat therefore was worn by...

When primitive man had to make his way over rocks, he discovered the need for covering his feet to protect them. So the first shoes, which were prob­ably sandals, were mats of grass, strips of hide, or even flat pieces of wood.

These were fastened to the...

The use of perfume in one form or another is probably as old as the human race. Actually the word "perfume" comes from the Latin word famous, meaning "smoke." So it's likely that in the early days people made a pleasant odor by burning certain nice-smelling woods, gums,...

You might think that something as useful and necessary as soap had been one of the first inventions of man. But soap is quite a modern thing in man's history. It only goes back about 2,000 years.

What ancient peoples used to do was to anoint their ...

Have you ever looked into a quiet pool of water and seen the reflection of the sky and trees in it? You were actually looking into a mirror! A mir­ror is only a smooth surface that reflects light and forms an image.

It's very important that the...