Prior to the seventeenth century, convicted criminals in Britain faced grim fates. Few went to prison—the Tower of London was reserved mostly for high class prisoners. Instead the courts relied on one of two options: physical punishment or death. And… Read More
For centuries, the Mayans chewed chicle, dried sap of the sapodilla tree. Then in 1845, inventor Charles Adams thought to add flavoring to the chicle, and shortly after that opened the first chewing gum factory. Doctors warned that chewing gum would "exhaust the salivary glands and cause the intestines to stick together."
source: Don Wulffson, The Kid Who Invented the Popsicle