Today the decorated egg is a well-recognized Easter symbol. Many of us have spent Easter week boiling eggs to paint in colors from pastel to army green (the result of mixing all the colors together).

Evidence of smoking was first documented in 1556 in a report of an English sailor “emitting smoke from his nostrils.” French diplomat and scholar Jean Nicot (origin of the word nicotine) introduced tobacco to France in 1560.

“Valentine” was a common, gender-neutral name during the third to sixth centuries. It is of Latin origin and means “strong and healthy.”

The oldest known paper-doll card was printed around 1650 with two female figures and numerous dresses, headgear, hairstyles, and accessories.

The phrase “nutty as a fruitcake” was first used in 1935 in reference to Southern bakers who loaded their fruitcakes with nuts. But what is the history of this heavy, fruit-laden cake?

First used in print in 1749, the term “housewife” has been used to denote a sewing kit commonly used by the military. The pocket sewing kit was also known as a “hussif” or “hussy” (also spelled “huswife”).

The 1862 Homestead Act, signed by Lincoln prior to the Civil War, was an important piece of legislation about federal land.

Across history, men and women whitened their skin with facial powder to show their respectability and social class. It was also intended to hide facial blemishes, such as smallpox pocks or aged skin. Only much later was powder used to “enhance natural beauty.”

For many of us, summer means outings to the state fair and steam engine shows. But what do we know about the story and significance of steam power?

Stockings refer to over-the-knee hosiery, a term derived from the Anglo-Saxon word “hosen,” meaning covering.

Do you recall the series of six red advertising signs along the country highways? 

Bobbin lace was the preferred needlework in the 1700s. It was made by nuns using silk or linen thread on multiple spindles to create complex patterns. In 1806, Napoleon’s blockade on the English Channel stopped the shipments of silk thread from the East.

The first official game of baseball was held in 1846 in Hoboken, New Jersey. The evolving rules of the game govern the materials, form, and dimensions of a regulation baseball bat and ball.

Do you remember the early dresser sets with the comb, brush, mirror, and the matching bowl with a hole in its flat lid? In the Victorian era, this hair receiver bowl was kept on the dressing table to store hair removed from brushes and combs.

Cleopatra colored her lips with red dye from the crushed shells of the cochineal bug, which is still used today to make carmine, a red food coloring.

Many seniors of today attended a one-room school, and many of our mothers and grandmothers were teachers for at least a short time.

Centuries ago, European Christmas customs centered on St. Nicholas, a charitable Turkish Catholic bishop born in the fourth century. St. Nicholas was associated with gift giving to children, which occurred on Dec. 6, St. Nicholas Day.

In the collector’s world, there is a category known as “tramp art,” which includes wire kitchen utensils with a unique bottle-washer end. These were handmade by tramps, or hobos, who rode the railcars circa the 1930s.

What did humans use to clean themselves after toileting before toilet paper?

In 1887, Richard W. Sears hired Alvah C. Roebuck to repair watches while he established a mail-order business to sell the watches using a free catalog. Two years later, R.W. Sears sold the watch business.