For three centuries Europeans only drank chocolate.
The first bar for eating was moulded in Bristol in 1847, and the Swiss Daniel Peter invented milk chocolate only in 1875.
The events
- The first chocolate bar1847 · Bristol. For nearly three centuries after Columbus, Europeans only drank chocolate. In 1847 the Bristol firm of Fry & Sons mixed cocoa powder, sugar and cocoa butter into a mould, creating the first bar meant for eating.
- Columbus reaches the Americas1492 · Guanahani. Christopher Columbus, sailing for Spain in search of a western route to Asia, landed on the Bahamian island of Guanahani on 12 October 1492. It began lasting contact between the Old and New Worlds, transforming both hemispheres.
More amazing facts
- 1521 · 1697 The last independent Maya kingdom fell only in 1697, 176 years after Tenochtitlan, when Peter the Great was already ruling Russia.
- 1521 · 1544 The Italian pomodoro means “golden apple”: the botanist Mattioli used the name in 1544, perhaps because the first tomatoes in Europe were yellow. “Tomato” comes from the Aztec word tomatl.
- 1521 Cacao beans were money for the Aztecs, and they were counterfeited.
- 1522 Rats once had a lawyer.
- 1526 The founder of the Mughal Empire missed melons in India.
- 1526 In 1526 two battles fought with cannon redrew the map of Eurasia: in April Babur won at Panipat and founded the Mughal Empire, and in August Sultan Suleiman crushed Hungary at Mohács.