- Cotton dates from at least 7,000 years ago making it one of the world’s oldest known fibres
- Archaeologists found 5,000 year old cotton fabric at Mohenjo Daro, an ancient town in the Indus River Valley of West Pakistan
- The word ‘cotton’ is derived from ‘qutun’ or ‘kutun’, an Arabic word used to describe any fine textile
- There are 43 species of cotton
- 37 cotton species are from the Old World (Africa, Asia and Australia) and six from the New World (North and South America, Hawaii and the Galapagos Islands)
- Four cotton species have been domesticated around the world:
- Gossypium hirsutum by the Maya civilisation in Central America
- Gossypium barbadense by the Inca civilisation in South America
- Gossypium herbaceum by the Harappan civilisation in South Asia
- Gossypium aboreum by the Egyptian civilisation in North Africa
- Greek and Roman civilisations used cotton for awnings and sails as well as clothing
- Australia and Egypt produce the best quality cotton in the world
- 215 pairs of jeans can be made from a 227kg bale of cotton
- Cotton and its by-products are sometimes used in the production of bank notes, margarine, rubber and medical supplies
- One-third of the cottonseed produced from a typical crop is crushed for oil and meal and used in food products or as feed for livestock and poultry
- Cotton can absorb up to 27 times its own weight in water
- The Aztec civilisation used naturally coloured brown cotton as a principal form of payment
- Denim fabric was initially produced in Nimes, France. Denim derives its name from ‘serge de Nimes’ (‘fabric of Nimes’)
- In the 16th Century, sailors from the Italian port city, Genoa, began to wear denim trousers. The word ‘jeans’ is derived from ‘Genes’, the French name for Genoa
- Corduroy, a pile fabric with a plain or twill weave and lengthwise ribs, made its debut back in the 1600s during the reigns of the Kings Louis' of France. Because the sturdy and durable material was frequently worn by outdoor servants at the royal palace, it was dubbed "cord du roi" or "cloth of the king"
- Naturally coloured cotton varieties in South America have come in shades of red, yellow, beige, chocolate, pink, purple, green, striped like a tiger and even spotted like a leopard!
- Ancient Peruvians made fishing nets and lines from darker shades of cotton to be less visible to fish
