Which came first, the chicken or the egg? You may be familiar with this very old riddle. But we're not going to answer that question, since it is a real puzzle with no right answers! However, we are going to make a list of some of history's firsts. Fortunately, it's not as difficult to figure out as the chicken-and-egg question.

 

Dinosaur Firsts

Dinosaurs were probably one of the first creatures to roam the earth and how appropriate to begin a list of firsts with some interesting firsts about these creatures.

 

The Oldest Dinosaur

No one was around to take a picture of the first dinosaur, of course. And no one is quite sure what the first dinosaur was, but the study of dinosaur fossils (paleontology) has identified the Eoraptor as probably one of the oldest dinosaurs around. Bones of this small, carnivorous dinosaur were dug up in Argentina and Brazil and are the oldest ones to be found. They are about 230 million years old.

 

The First Dinosaur Bone Discovered

In 1676, Robert Plot, an antiquarian, historian and curator of a museum in Oxford , England published a drawing and description of a thigh bone which he found in Cornwall . He thought the bone belonged to a giant man or an elephant brought to Britain by the Romans. Later, the fossil disappeared without a trace. However, the existing drawing and description suggest that the bone may have well belonged to a “Megalosaurous”.

 

Everyday Things

We tend to take for granted the things we use daily. But there was a time when people lived without toilet paper and jeans were unheard of. So who discovered or created these things that are so much a part of our everyday lives?

 

First Toilet Paper

Before the toilet roll was invented, people used a variety of things as toilet paper. These include wool, corncobs, mussel shells, pages from a book, coconut shells, a sponge soaked in salt water on the end of a stick (yuck!), to name a few. Fortunately, the Scott brothers, Edward and Clarence from America started a company in 1879. Theirs was not the first company to create toilet paper, but they were the first to mass-produce toilet rolls. In fact, Scott toilet rolls still exist today!

 

In 1857, Joseph Gayetty tried and failed to sell huge boxes of thin sheets of paper. Inventor Walter Alcock came out with toilet rolls at the same time as the Scott brothers, but he failed to convince the British public to buy his product.

 

First Jeans

Levi Strauss is a popular brand of jeans, but it is also the name of the man who discovered jeans in the first place! In the 1850s in California , Mr Strauss was looking for a sturdy fabric to dress hardy miners in. He found it in denim (so called after the French name for it, serge de N Î mes ), also known as jeans (after a textile made for sailors in Genoa called Genes). Strauss dyed it indigo blue and put his first name on the product and it became an instant hit.

 

Great Explorers

The world is a huge and vast place and thanks to great explorers, we now know so much about it. Imagine if these explorers didn't have the courage to explore the unknown world out there, countries such as America might never have been discovered.

 

First World Map

As people travelled away from their homelands over the centuries, they wanted to record where they had been. They wanted to prove where they had gone and so that others could follow. So, they created maps. Most experts say that the first world map was the work of the Greek philosopher and astronomer Anaximander of Miletus (he lived in what is present-day Turkey ). He engraved a circular map of the known world on a stone tablet in about 550 BC.

 

Mountain Conqueror

Becoming the first person to climb a very tall, very dangerous, or very famous mountain makes you a hero for life and British explorer, David Hempleman-Adams is one of these great heroes. He was the first person to scale the highest mountains on all seven continents and visit both the North and South magnetic and geographic Poles on foot. His last destination was the geographic North Pole which he conquered on April 28, 1998 .

 

After reading all these firsts, perhaps you will be inspired to come up with your own list of firsts as well!