Here's a timeline of rubber advancements throughout the years...
| 1493: | Christopher Columbus discovered natural rubber in Haiti, where he saw the natives there playing with ball made from the "sap" of a tree called "cau-uchu." |
| 1736: | Natural rubber was introduced to the western world by Charles de la Condamine. |
| 1770: | John Priestly found that natural rubber could erase or rub away pencil mark. Hence, he called the material "rubber." |
| 1820: | Thomas Hancock invented a machine called a "masticater," that allowed the rubber to be softened, mixed, and shaped. |
| 1839: | Charles Goodyear discovered the process of vulcanization (heating the natural rubber which causes a complex chemical change). Vulcanizing gives rubber its elasticity and other desirable properties, so that it's useful. |
| 1845: | Stephen Perry patents the rubber band in England on March 17. |
| 1876: | Sir Henry Wickham collected some 70,000 seeds and secretly carried them to London from Brazil. Years later, these rubber trees were planted in large scale in Asia (in places such as Ceylon and Singapore), as well as Africa. |