Mother's Day Trivia

♥Mother's Day can be traced back to ancient Greece, when the Greeks held festivals honoring Rhea, the mother of the gods.

♥The ancient Egyptians celebrated the goddess Isis, who was considered the mother of the pharoahs. Romans also honored Isis by celebrating for three days.

♥Anna Jarvis is recognized as the founder of the Mother's Day holiday in the United States of America. On May 12, 1907, two years after her mother's death, she held a memorial to her mother and thereafter embarked upon a campaign to make "Mother's Day" a recognized holiday. She succeeded in making this nationally recognized in 1914

♥President Woodrow Wilson helped celebrate the first national Mother's Day in 1914. As the holiday became more commercialized, Anna Jarvis filed a lawsuit in Pennsylvannia to try to stop the commercialization. She failed.

♥The official flower for Mother's Day is the carnation. Red carnations are for mothers still living, while white carnations are to honor those that have passed away.

♥Mothering Sunday is held on the fourth Sunday of Lent, or three weeks before Easter, in the UK and Ireland. In South America, most countries celebrate Mother's Day on the second Sunday of May as well. Argentina celebrates it in October because it is in the southern hemisphere and spring is in October.

A top 10 Trivia

I'm a reading person- I like to do research and am always looking for more things to learn about. I came across this story and had to snicker. The more I read the more I was intrigued. The Article is about the top 10 appliances that we can't seem to be able to live without read about here HERE it's Over on "How Stuff Works" (owned by the Discovery Channel).

So here's the run down
♥Clocks
♥Toilets
♥The Refrigerator
♥The Washing Machine
♥The Telephone
♥Recorded Sound
♥Television
♥Air Conditioning (my personal favorite)
♥The Microwave Oven
♥The computer

Now go read the article and find out why these items made the top list. I have to agree, I use all of these items on a daily basis,okay minus the air conditioning. To be honest though, I could not see myself ever buying a car or a house for that matter that does not have air conditioning.

Somthing silly

Want something funny to do? Go to Urbandictionary.com and look up your name. here's what I came up with...and yes my first name is actually Sandra.


A strong name for a strong woman--A Sandra, especially one born under the star (sun) sign of Aries tends to be intelligent, witty, extremely open, honest & passionate and will do whatever it takes to uphold her morals. While these are extremely admirable traits, they also mean that they should never be crossed. Hope you are paying attention, you... See More have been warned!!
On the flip-side, if you do the right thing (and why wouldn't you?) a Sandra will go out of her way to make your life beautiful.
While fiercely independent, a Sandra has both a strong sense of community and family and will do whatever it takes (regardless of personal cost) to defend and protect those that she cares about.
Do yourself a favour – find a Sandra; stocks are limited and they are (rightly so) in high demand.
Need a friend? Look no further than Sandra

Now wouldn't this make a great scrapbook layout? toss in a picture or two of yourself, some great background papers a couple of embellishments and there you have it!

Christmas Trivia

The modern Christmas tree was likely born in the 8th century, when St. Boniface was converting the Germanic tribes. The tribes worshipped oak trees, decorating them for the winter solstice. St. Boniface cut down an enormous oak tree, that was central to the worship of a particular tribe, but a fir tree grew in its place. The evergreen was offered as a symbol of Christianity, which the newly converted Germans began decorating for Christmas.

***

Prince Albert, who was German, introduced the Christmas tree to England after his marriage to Queen Victoria in 1840.
German immigrants to Pennsylvania brought Christmas trees to America.

***

The Druids believed mistletoe fell from heaven and grew onto a tree that sprang from Earth. Mistletoe thus represented the joining of heaven and earth, and God's reconciliation with mankind. A kiss under mistletoe symbolized acceptance and reconciliation.

***

Patron saint of children and sailors, Saint Nicholas was a 4th-century bishop from Asia Minor. He was famous for giving gifts to children. His feast day, December 6, became a children's holiday in Holland, where he is known as Sint Nikolaas. English colonists in New York (previously the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam) called him “Santa Claus” because they couldn't pronounce the Dutch name. The English began celebrating the feast day on Christmas.

***

Kriss Kringle, another name for Santa Claus, developed in Germany around 1600. German Protestants recognized December 25, the birth of the Christ child, Christkindl, as the time to give gifts. “Christkindl” evolved into “Kriss Kringle.”

***

In the Netherlands and Germany, the Santa Claus figure often rode through the sky on a horse to deliver presents to children. He often wore a bishop's robes and was sometimes accompanied by Black Peter, an elf who whipped naughty children. In addition to the tradition of Saint Nicholas, the three Wise Men gave gifts to the baby Jesus, starting the Christmas gift tradition.

Christmas trivia courtesy of Trivia Today ezine@gohpercentral.com

Numbers Trivia

According to numerologists, the number nine holds special
rank. It is associated with forgiveness, compassion and
success on the positive side as well as arrogance and self-
righteousness on the negative.

***

Pythagoras, the Greek mathematician and father of the
famous theorem, noted that nine in particular had many
unique properties. For example, multiply nine by any two,
three or four-digit number and the sums of those will also
break down to nine. 9x62 = 558; 5+5+8=18; 1+8=9.

***

The Chinese associate the number nine with long life, due
to how similar its pronunciation is to the local word for
long-lasting. Historically, ancient Chinese emperors
associated themselves closely with the number nine, which
appeared prominently in architecture and royal dress,
often in the form of nine fearsome dragons.

***
The imperial dynasties in China were so convinced of the
power of the number nine that the palace complex at
Beijing's Forbidden City is rumored to have been built
with 9,999 rooms.

***

In Japanese, the word for nine is a homophone for the word
for suffering, so the number is considered highly unlucky -
second only to four, which sounds like death.

***

Many Japanese will go so far as to avoid room numbers
including nine at hotels or hospitals, if the building
planners haven't already eliminated them altogether.
And in America, we're superstitious with the #13...go figure!

Memorial Day Trivia

Memorial day was first celebrated on May 30, 1868. It was observed by placing flowers on the graves of Union and Confederate soldiers during the first national celebration.
Gen. James Garfield made a speech at Arlington National Cemetery, after which around 5,000 participants helped to decorate the graves of the more than 20,000 Union and Confederate soldiers who were buried there.


***

Since the late 1950’s on the Thursday just before Memorial day, around 1200 soldiers of the 3d U.S. Infantry place small American flags at each of the more than 260,000 gravestones at Arlington National Cemetery.

***

On Memorial Day, the flag should be at half-staff until noon only, then raised to the top of the staff.

***

Moina Michael came up with an idea of wearing red poppies on Memorial day in honor of those who died serving the nation during war. She was the first to wear one, and sold poppies to her friends and co-workers with the money going to benefit servicemen in need.

***

In the year 2000 the National Moment of Remembrance Resolution passed. At 3pm on Memorial Day all Americans are asked to voluntarily and informally observe in their own way a moment of remembrance and respect by pausing from whatever they are doing for a moment of silence or listening to Taps.

***

The south refused to honor the dead on Memorial Day until after World War I when the meaning of Memorial Day changed from honoring civil war dead to honoring Americans who died fighting in any war.

Did you know...

That it's National Pig Day? Click on the pink link to find out more.

Hannah made this darling little Pig in Honor of this special day- I didn't know which picture to post so I added them all! Oh in case you are wondering...this little pig is one of the many cute creations from the book Stray Sock Sewing.

more Halloween trivia

HERE ARE SOME FUN FACTS ABOUT HALLOWEEN:

It's not just for kids! Halloween While 82 percent of children take part in Halloween festivities, a surprising
67 percent of adults also join in the fun.
Candy corn, anyone? With an estimated $ 1.93 billion in candy sales, Halloween is the sweetest holiday of the year, beating out Easter, Valentine's Day, and Christmas. In fact, one quarter of all the candy sold each year is purchased between September 15 and November 10.
U.S. consumers spend as much as $ 1.5 billion on costumes each year, and more than $ 2.5 billion on other Halloween paraphernalia, such as decorations and crafts — more than $ 100 million of which is spent online.
The first Halloween card was made in the early 1900s. These days, U.S. consumers spend about $ 50 million on Halloween greetings.

Pumpkin Trivia

The name pumpkin orginated from "pepon" – the Greek word for "large melon."
***
The top pumpkin production states are Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania and California.
***
Pumpkins are fruits. A pumpkin is a type of squash and is a member of the gourd family (Cucurbitacae), which include squash, cucumbers, gherkins, and melons.
***
Pumpkin seeds should be planted between the last week of May and the middle of June. They take between 90 and 120 days to grow and are picked in October when they are bright orange in color. Their seeds can be saved to grow new pumpkins the next year.
***
The largest pumpkin pie ever made was over five feet in diameter and weighed over 350 pounds. It used 80 pounds of cooked pumpkin, 36 pounds of sugar, 12 dozen eggs and took six hours to bake.
***
Colonists sliced off pumpkin tops; removed seeds and filled the insides with milk, spices and honey. This was baked in hot ashes and is the origin of pumpkin pie.

Author Trivia

Children's book author Dr. Seuss's real name was Theodor
Geisel. His middle name was Seuss.
***
Beatrix Potter, author of Peter Rabbit, had a real pet
rabbit named "Peter". She put Peter on a leash and walked
him through her neighborhood in London.
***
Many of Agatha Christie's stories involved people getting
poisoned. She knew so much about chemicals because she
worked in a hospital laboratory during World War II.
***

Charles Dickens had two pet ravens, both known as Grip.
Upon Grip I's demise, Dickens had his beloved bird stuffed.
These days, Grip can be seen at the Free Library of
Philadelphia's Rare Books Department, where he stands guard
over the Poe and Dickens collections.
***
During World War I, Edith Wharton traveled to the Western
Front in France, both to write about the battlefields for
American publications and to help the Red Cross create
hostels and schools for those displaced by war.
***
Flannery O'Connor had a special fondness for peacocks,
which she often used in her fiction to represent Christ.
When she returned to live on the family farm as an adult,
she raised an unusually large flock of peacocks, which she
tended to until her death in 1964.

Recycling Trivia...

As you all already know, I'm big into recycling. So when I came across this bit of trivia I just HAD to share it with you!

It takes glass one million years to decompose, which means it can be recycled an infinite amount of times.
***
The first real recycling program was introduced in New York City in the 1890s.
***
One tree can filter up to 60 pounds of pollutants from the air each year.
***

Recycling plastic saves twice as much energy as burning it in an incinerator.
***
Since 1978, the weight of a soda bottle has been reduced by
29 percent.
***
Around 45% of the paper Americans use each year is recovered for recycling.

Coffee Trivia

Coffee, the brown liquid substance that makes me smile. Coffee adds to the deliciousness of desserts such as Tiramisu, Chocolate Cheesecake. Hot Chocolate, Jamoca Almond Fudge Ice Cream from Baskin-Robbins, Mocha which we know is coffee and chocolate. Oh how I just adore coffee!


Germany is the world's second largest consumer of coffee in terms of volume at 16 pounds per person.
***
Over 53 countries grow coffee worldwide, but all of them lie along the equator between the tropic of Cancer and Capricorn.
***
An acre of coffee trees can produce up to 10,000 pounds of coffee cherries. That amounts to approximately 2,000 pounds of beans after hulling or milling.
***
The percolator was invented in 1827 by a French man. It would boil the coffee producing a bitter tasting brew. Today most people use the drip or filtered method to brew their coffee.
***
Up until the 1870s most coffee was roasted at home in a frying pan over a charcoal fire. It wasn't until recent times that batch roasting became popular.
***
Each year some seven million tons of green beans are produced world wide, most of which is hand picked.

Trivia- Volcano's

I'm missing my friend Kim and this bit of trivia is in honor of her move to Hawaii...enjoy!



Volcanoes are vents in the Earth's surface from which
molten rock, debris, and steam issue. About 1,900 volcanoes
are active today or known to have been active in historical
times.
***
Almost 90 percent of volcanoes are in the Ring of Fire, a
band of volcanoes circling the edges of the Pacific Ocean.
***
Most volcanoes occur at plate boundaries, areas where huge
slabs of rock meet in the Earth's lithosphere, or outer shell.
Volcanoes can rise in subduction zones, areas where plates
meet and one is pushed beneath another. Molten rock rises to
the surface and forms a volcano.

Intraplate volcanoes are caused by hot spots deep within
the Earth. Magma rises and erupts as lava through cracks
in the Earth's surface, forming volcanoes.
***
Volcanoes can erupt in a combination of ways: explosively
with hard pyroclastic material; explosively with fluid lava
(lava fountains); effusively with hard pyroclastic flows
(clouds of ash and gases); and effusively with fluid lava.
***
Although some volcanoes are considered extinct, almost any
volcano is capable of rumbling to life again. Volcanoes
provide valuable mineral deposits, fertile soils, and
geothermal energy.

2008 Year of the Frog

The world's leading conservationists have joined together to name 2008 "The Year of the Frog," in hopes of raising both awareness and funding needed to mitigate the amphibian extinction crisis. Another great place is Amphibian Ark, learn what you can do to keep them from becoming extinct. Please click on the links (highlighted in green) for more information. Now on to some frog Trivia

There are close to 4,000 known species of frogs, including
toads. They range in size from less than half an inch to
nearly a foot long and come in a rainbow of colors and
patterns.
***
Adult frogs are carnivorous and will eat just about anything
smaller than themselves, including insects, worms and even
other frogs.
***
The earliest known frog (Vieraella herbsti) appeared during
the late Jurassic period, about 190 million years ago. The
specimens that have been found in Arizona shows that the
skeletal shape and body plan of the frog has remained
almost unchanged.
***
The biggest frog is the appropriately named Goliath frog
(Conraua goliath) of Cameroon. They reach nearly a foot and
weigh as much as 7 lbs. The smallest frog is the Gold frog
(Psyllophryne Didactyla) of Brazil. They grow to only 3/8
inch.
***
Equally small is the Eleutherodactylus iberia discovered
only in 1996 in Monte Iberia, Cuba. (It doesn't even have
a common name yet.) Other small frogs are poison frogs.
They measure less than 1/2 inch.
***
Recently scientists have noticed a marked decline in the
numbers of frogs and other amphibians around the world.
Some species are believed to have become extinct within
the past fifty years. Causes for the decline include ozone
depletion, pollution, habitat loss, introduction of new
predators, disease and even a fungus.

Diamond Trivia

A diamond is the hardest natural substance on earth, but
if it is placed in an oven and the temperature is raised
to about 1405 degrees Fahrenheit, it will simply vanish,
without even ash remaining. Only a little carbon dioxide
will have been released.
***
Diamonds are formed over a period of a billion or more
years deep within earth's crust - about 90 miles deep -
and is pushed to the surface by volcanoes. Most diamonds
are found in volcanic rock, called Kimberlite, or in the
sea after having been carried away by rivers when they
were pushed to the surface.
***
A diamond is 58 times harder than the next hardest mineral
on earth, corundum, from which rubies and sapphires are
formed. It was only during the 15th century that it was
discovered that the only way to cut diamonds was with other
diamonds. Yet, diamonds are brittle. If you hit one hard
with a hammer, it will shatter.
***
The world's largest diamond was the Cullinan, found in
South Africa in 1905. It weighed 3,106.75 carats uncut. It
was cut into the Great Star of Africa, weighing 530.2
carats, the Lesser Star of Africa, which weighs 317.40
carats, and 104 other diamonds of nearly flawless color
and clarity. They now form part of the British crown jewels.
***
Not all diamonds are white. Impurities lend diamonds a
shade of blue, red, orange, yellow, green and even black.
A green diamond is the rarest. It is not the rarest
gemstone, however. That title goes to a pure red ruby.
Diamonds actually are found in fair abundance; thousands
are mined every year. 80% of them are not suitable for
jewelry - they are used in industry. Only diamonds of
higher clarity are sourced to the jewelry stores.
***
A diamond carat differs from a gold carat. The gold carat
indicates purity - pure gold being 24 carats. One diamond
carat is 0.007055 oz. The word carat derives from the carob
bean. Gem dealers used to balance their scales with carob
beans because these beans all have same weight.

My quest for knowledge

Have you ever wanted to know the Origins of something in particular? You know the "why and How it got started...my quest for knowledge took me to this website and it's all about Toile fabric...pretty cool stuff I dare say! Please check out this website Quilters Muse for cool stuff and follow this link for information on the origins of Toile de Jouy. Enjoy!

People and Language Trivia

The world's population grows by some 100 million each year.
Some 950 million people in the world are malnourished.
***
The average male adult is 5'9'' tall and weighs 155 pounds.
The average female adult is 5'3'' tall and weighs 125 pounds.
***
There are 106 boys born for every 100 girls.
***
Como se' huh?
There are more than 2,700 languages in the world. In addition
, there are more than 7,000 dialects. A dialect is a
regional variety of a language that has a different pronunciation
, vocabulary, or meaning.
***
B-A-S-Q-U-E
The most difficult language to learn is Basque, which is
spoken in northwestern Spain and southwestern France. It
is not related to any other language in the world. It has
an extremely complicated word structure and vocabulary.
***
Click-Click-Clack
More than 1,000 different languages are spoken on the
continent of Africa. Many languages in Africa include a
"click" sound that is pronounced at the same time as
other sounds.

Time Trivia...

"Time is what we want most, but what we use worst."
~ William Penn
Some trivia about Time...
The wristwatch was invented in 1904 by Louis Cartier.
***
There are 31,557,600 seconds in a year.
***
A jiffy is an actual measurement equal to 1/100th of a
second.

ZONES
Not all time zones are in one hour increments. Some count-
ries use 30 minute offsets. When the time in Greenwich is
12:00 noon, it is 8:30am in Newfoundland and 9:30pm in
Australia. In Nepal, however, they use a time offset in
quarter hours, so the time there would be 5:45pm.
***
Talk about confusing...
Prior to 1995, International Date Line split the country
of Kiribati. The result was that the eastern part of
Kiribati was a whole day and two hours behind the western
part of the country where its capital is located.
***
Perfect Timing
The second is defined as exactly 9,192,631,770 oscilla-
tions or cycles of the cesium atom's resonant frequency,
replacing the old second that was defined in terms of the
Earth's motions. The newest generation of the "Atomic
Clock" is accurate to 30 billionths of a second a year.
It is the most accurately measured physical quantity in
science.

Leap Year Trivia

A leap year is a year in which one extra day has been in-
serted, or intercalated, at the end of February. A leap
year consists of 366 days, whereas other years, called
common years, have 365 days.
***
The vernal equinox is the time when the sun is directly
above the Earth's equator, moving from the southern to
the northern hemisphere. The mean time between two suc-
cessive vernal equinoxes is called a tropical year–also
known as a solar year–and is about 365.24 days long.
Using a calendar with 365 days every year would result
in a loss of 0.24 days, or almost six hours per year.
***
By adding a leap year approximately every fourth year,
the difference between the calendar and the seasons can
be reduced significantly, and the calendar will align
with the seasons much more accurately.
TRADITIONS AND SUPERSTITIONS
A tradition was introduced many centuries ago to allow women
to propose to men during a leap year. This privilege of pro-
posing was restricted to leap day in some areas.
***
Leap day was sometimes known as 'Bachelors' Day'. A man was
expected to pay a penalty, such as a gown or money, if he
refused a marriage offer from a woman. The tradition's
origin stemmed from an old Irish tale referring to St.
Bridget striking a deal with St Patrick to allow women to
propose to men every four years. This old custom was pro-
bably made to balance the traditional roles of men and
women in a similar way to how the leap day balances the
calendar.
***
It was also considered to be unlucky for someone to be born
on a leap day in Scotland and for couples to marry on a leap
year, including on a leap day, in Greece.

Some trivia my birth stone- the Pearl

Pearl
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
For other uses, see Pearl (disambiguation).

A black pearl and a shell of the black-lipped pearl oyster
Saltwater pearl oyster farm, Seram, Indonesia
A pearl is a hard, rounded object produced within the soft tissue (specifically the mantle) of a living shelled mollusk. Just like the shell of mollusks, a pearl is composed of calcium carbonate in minute crystalline form, which has been deposited in concentric layers. The ideal pearl is perfectly round and smooth, but many other shapes of pearls occur, see baroque pearl.

The finest quality pearls have been highly valued as gemstones and objects of beauty for many centuries, and the word pearl has become a metaphor for something rare, fine, and admirable.

Almost any shelled mollusk can, by natural processes, produce some kind of "pearl" when an irritating microscopic object becomes trapped within the mollusk's mantle folds, but virtually none of these "pearls" are considered to be gemstones.

True iridescent pearls, the most desirable pearls, are produced by two groups of molluscan bivalves or clams. One family lives in the sea: the pearl oysters. The other, very different group of bivalves live in freshwater, and these are the river mussels, for example, see the freshwater pearl mussel.

Saltwater pearls can grow in several species of marine pearl oysters in the family Pteriidae. Freshwater pearls grow within certain (but by no means all) species of freshwater mussels in the order Unionida, the families Unionidae and Margaritiferidae. All of these bivalves are able to make true pearls because they have a thick inner shell layer composed of "mother of pearl" or nacre. The mantle of the living bivalve can create a pearl in the same way that it creates the pearly inner layer of the shell.

Fine gem quality saltwater and freshwater pearls can and do sometimes occur completely naturally, but this is a rare occurrence. Many hundreds of pearl oysters or pearl mussels have to be gathered and opened (killed) in order to find even one pearl, and for many centuries that was the only way pearls were obtained. This was the main reason why pearls fetched such extraordinary prices in the past. In modern times however, almost all the pearls for sale were formed with a good deal of expert intervention from human pearl farmers.

A true pearl is made from layers of nacre, by the same living process as is used in the secretion of the mother of pearl which lines the shell. A "natural pearl" is one that formed without any human intervention at all, in the wild, and these are very rare. A "cultured pearl" on the other hand, is one that has been formed on a pearl farm. The great majority of pearls on the market are cultured pearls.

Imitation or fake pearls are also widely sold in inexpensive jewelry, but the quality of the iridescence is usually very poor, and generally speaking, fake pearls are usually quite easy to distinguish from the real thing.

Pearls have been harvested, or more recently cultivated, primarily for use in jewelry, but in the past they were also stitched onto lavish clothing, as worn, for example, by royalty. Pearls have also been crushed and used in cosmetics, medicines, or in paint formulations.

Pearl is considered to be the birthstone for June.
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The History of Pearls-

Long known as the "Queen of Gems," pearls possess a history and allure far beyond what today's wearer may recognize. Throughout much of recorded history, a natural pearl necklace comprised of matched spheres was a treasure of almost incomparable value, in fact the most expensive jewelry in the world. Now we see pearls almost as accessories, relatively inexpensive decorations to accompany more costly gemstones.Before the creation of cultured pearls in the early 1900s, natural pearls were so rare and expensive that they were reserved almost exclusively for the noble and very rich. A jewelry item that today's working women might take for granted, a 16-inch strand of perhaps 50 pearls, often costs between $500 and $5,000. At the height of the Roman Empire, when pearl fever reached its peak, the historian Suetonius wrote that the Roman general Vitellius financed an entire military campaign by selling just one of his mother's pearl earrings.No one will ever know who were the earliest people to collect and wear pearls. George Frederick Kunz, whom I like to call America's first gemologist, in his 1908 masterpiece, The Book of the Pearl, states his belief that an ancient fish-eating tribe, perhaps along the coast of India, initially appreciated the shape and lustre of saltwater pearls, which they discovered while opening oysters for food. No matter the origin, a reverence for pearls spread throughout the world over the ensuing millennia. India's sacred books and epic tales abound with pearl references. One legend has the Hindu god Krishna discovering pearls when he plucks the first one from the sea and presents it to his daughter Pandaïa on her wedding day. China's long recorded history also provides ample evidence of the importance of pearls. In the Shu King, a 23rd-century B.C. book, the scribe sniffs that as tribute, a lesser king sent "strings of pearls not quite round." In Egypt, decorative mother-of-pearl was used at least as far back as 4200 B.C., but the use of pearls themselves seems to have been later, perhaps related to the Persian conquest in the fifth century B.C. Rome's pearl craze reached its zenith during the first century B.C. Roman women upholstered couches with pearls and sewed so many into their gowns that they actually walked on their pearl-encrusted hems. Caligula, having made his horse a consul, decorated it with a pearl necklace.

The Romans and Egyptians prized pearls above all other gems.
Pearls, in fact, played the pivotal role at the most celebrated banquet in literature. To convince Rome that Egypt possessed a heritage and wealth that put it above conquest, Cleopatra wagered Marc Antony she could give the most expensive dinner in history. The Roman reclined as the queen sat with an empty plate and a goblet of wine (or vinegar). She crushed one large pearl of a pair of earrings, dissolved it in the liquid, then drank it down. Astonished, Antony declined his dinner -- the matching pearl -- and admitted she had won. Pliny, the world's first gemologist, writes in his famous Natural History that the two pearls were worth an estimated 60 million sesterces, or 1,875,000 ounces of fine silver ($9,375,000 with silver at $5/ounce).

The Arabs have shown the greatest love for pearls. The depth of their affection for pearls is enshrined in the Koran, especially within its description of Paradise, which says: "The stones are pearls and jacinths; the fruits of the trees are pearls and emeralds; and each person admitted to the delights of the celestial kingdom is provided with a tent of pearls, jacinths, and emeralds; is crowned with pearls of incomparable lustre, and is attended by beautiful maidens resembling hidden pearls."
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Pearl Harbors

During the long history of pearls, the principal oyster beds lay in the Persian Gulf, along the coasts of India and Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), and in the Red Sea. Chinese pearls came mainly from freshwater rivers and ponds, whereas Japanese pearls were found near the coast in salt water. Nearly all the pearls in commerce originated from those few sources. Over the next millennium only three substantive events altered what appeared to be a very stable pattern. Considering the minimal state of pearling in the United States today, it is impressive that two of the three developments occurred in the New World.As Europe raced to capitalize on what Columbus had stumbled upon, the major powers of the day concentrated on spheres of influence. Spain focused its efforts in Central and South America and the Caribbean. Along both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of Central America, the Spanish forced slaves to dive for pearls. The English colonizers along North America's Atlantic coast and French explorers to the north and west, all found native Americans wearing pearls, and they discovered freshwater pearls in the Ohio, Mississippi, and Tennessee River basins. So many gems were exported to Europe that the New World quickly gained the appellation "Land of Pearls."

Mother-of-pearl, the iridescent coating inside oyster shells, once formed the foundation of a thriving button industry in the U.S.
What is now the United States became famous for two products. Its best freshwater pearls fueled a ready market overseas, purchased by people who, unlike the then less sophisticated frontier Americans, knew the rarity and value of large, round, lustrous pearls. Many of the best examples made their way into Europe's royal gem collections, where they can still be seen on display, usually misidentified as saltwater pearls from the Orient. America also produced mother-of-pearl buttons, which it exported all over the world. Iowa became the center of the trade, shipping billions of iridescent fasteners until World War II, when newly invented plastic virtually drove quality buttons out of the market.While North America set a new standard for large freshwater pearls, white saltwater pearls from the coasts of Panama and Venezuela competed with pearls from Bahrain, and black saltwater pearls from the Bay of California (in what is now Mexico) provided an alternative to Tahitian blacks. More pearls arrived in Spain than the country's aristocratic market could absorb. As with the emeralds it was mining in Colombia, Spain found ready buyers for its new pearls across Europe and in India.Those pearl supplies continued into the 1800s, until overfishing in Central American waters and in North American streams depleted the beds. Pollution also took its toll as the United States industrialized. Then, toward the end of the last century, the single event that forever reshaped the pearl trade slowly unfolded in the isolated island nation of Japan.

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A Culture is Born...

Kokichi Mikimoto, the son of a noodle maker, had a dream and a hard-working wife, Ume. Together they set about to do what no one else had done -- entice oysters to produce round pearls on demand. Mikimoto did not know that government biologist Tokichi Nishikawa and carpenter Tatsuhei Mise had each independently discovered the secret of pearl culturing -- inserting a piece of oyster epithelial membrane (the lip of mantle tissue) with a nucleus of shell or metal into an oyster's body or mantle causes the tissue to form a pearl sack. That sack then secretes nacre to coat the nucleus, thus creating a pearl.Mise received a 1907 patent for his grafting needle. When Nishikawa applied for a patent for nucleating, he realized that he and Mise had discovered the same thing. In a compromise, the pair signed an agreement uniting their common discovery as the Mise-Nishikawa method, which remains the heart of pearl culturing. Mikimoto had received an 1896 patent for producing hemispherical pearls, or mabes, and a 1908 patent for culturing in mantle tissue. But he could not use the Mise-Nishikawa method without invalidating his own patents. So he altered the patent application to cover a technique to make round pearls in mantle tissue, which was granted in 1916. With this technicality, Mikimoto began an unprecedented expansion, buying rights to the Mise-Niskikawa method and eclipsing those originators of cultured pearls, leaving their names only for history books.

Mikimoto's efforts made pearls in a range of styles and prices available to consumers worldwide.

Largely by trial and error over a number of years, Mikimoto did contribute one crucial discovery. Whereas Nishikawa nucleated with silver and gold beads, Mikimoto experimented with everything from glass to lead to clay to wood. He found he had the highest success rates when he inserted round nuclei cut from U.S. mussel shells. Although some countries continue to test other nuclei, U.S. mussel shells have been the basis for virtually all cultured saltwater pearls for 90 years.Even though third with his patents and his secrets, Mikimoto revolutionized pearling. Ever the flamboyant showman and promoter, he badgered jewelers and governments to accept his cultured products as pearls. His workers created massive pearl structures, which he displayed at every major international exposition. By mastering the techniques, Mikimoto, then hundreds of other Japanese firms, made pearls available to virtually everyone in the world.Fred Ward is a gemologist and author of the book Pearls (Gem Book Publishers, Bethesda, Maryland, 1998), from which this article was adapted.

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