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5 Things Apples Have Been Used for Throughout History

Apples have always been a popular fruit all over the world. While they were not originally from America (the first country to make apples a sought-after food was Persia), they have become an extremely "American" fruit, being used in everything from apple pie, to savory dishes like pork roast. Apples have had many different uses in different places throughout the centuries, though, some of which may surprise you.

Planting orchards

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The first American apple orchard was planted in 1625 by a man named William Blackstone. He created this orchard by planting apples/apple seeds from Europe on Beacon Hill in Boston in order to bring the beloved fruit to America. Many other Americans followed suit, planting their own apple orchards on American soil. The first governor of Massachusetts, for instance, wrote all about his own orchard in his account book, where he also mentioned that his children set fire to part of it and burned down 500 of his trees. Founding Fathers George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were orchardists as well, although their orchards fared much better than the governor's.

To explain gravity

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While most of us remember the story about Isaac Newton getting bopped on the head by an apple in the 17th century and suddenly coming up with the concept of gravity, that is most likely not exactly how it happened. Newton, a college student at the time, really was in his family's orchard in England when he saw an apple fall from a tree, but it probably didn't hit him on the head. The way that it fell straight down to the ground instead of to the side or in another direction got him to thinking, which eventually led to his developing the universal law of gravitation.

Magic

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According to some legends, apples have a connection to the "fairy world." The tradition of bobbing for apples at Halloween is related to the idea that both apples and water have a supernatural link to other worlds beyond our own. Some other Halloween traditions say that taking a bite out of an apple and sleeping with it under your pillow will make you have a dream about the person who will be your true love. It is also said that falling asleep in an apple orchard could make you wake up years later, and that burying treasure under an apple tree will ensure that it will never decompose or be discovered by anyone else.

Symbolism

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Everyone has heard the story of the Garden of Eden, in which Eve is tempted to eat the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, and she does it, dooming her companion Adam and the rest of the human race that came after them. For centuries, people have believed that the fruit that is referred to in this story is the apple, but this is actually not true. The type of fruit is never specified, meaning it could have been anything from a fig to an olive to a banana. Early artists, though, depicted this fruit as being an apple, perhaps because in Latin the word "malus" means both "evil" and "apple." This associated the Forbidden Fruit with an apple in everyone's mind, and the symbolism has hung on for hundreds of years.

Health

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You knew we couldn't get through an article about apples without reciting the compulsory phrase: "An apple a day keeps the doctor away." This idea has been around for thousands of years, with some cultures believing that apples could make them immune to sickness, or even immortal. Today, apples have been scientifically proven to help reduce allergic reactions by slowing down the body's secretion of histamine, as well as to shorten the length and severity of migraines. They have also been shown to help with digestion by slowing down the process and making you feel fuller and more satisfied longer.