More than 3,000 years ago, a European Phoenician merchant ship loaded with the crystalline mineral "natural soda" sailed up the Beirut River on the Mediterranean coast. Due to low tide, the merchant ship ran aground.
The crew went onto the beach. Some of the crew carried large pots of firewood and used pieces of "natural soda" as supports for the pots to cook their meals on the beach.
As the crew finished their meal, the tide began to rise. They were about to pack up and board the ship to continue their journey when suddenly someone shouted, "Look, everyone, there's something shiny and bright on the sand under the pot!
The crew took the shimmering objects to the ship and studied them closely. They found that the shiny things had some quartz sand and melted natural soda stuck to them. It turned out that the sparkling things were crystals produced by the natural soda that they used as a support for their cooking pots, which had reacted chemically with the quartz sand on the beach by the action of a flame, and this was the first glass. The Phoenicians later made a fortune by combining the quartz sand and natural soda and melting them together in a special furnace to make glass balls.
Around the 4th century, the Romans began to apply glass to doors and windows. By 1291, glass-making technology in Italy was well developed.
"Our glass-making technology must not leak out and bring all the artisans who make glass together to produce glass!"
And so it was that all the Italian glassmakers were sent to an isolated island to produce glass, which they were not allowed to leave during their lifetime.
In 1688, a man named Nerf invented the process of making large pieces of glass, and from then on, glass became an ordinary object.