Today, pencils are everywhere, from schools to golf courses to any art studio. What seemed like a simple invention is now a billion-dollar global industry. But who invented this household staple?

Was sticking an eraser on the back of a pencil common sense, or a new invention? zimmytws/iStock On this day in 1868, Philadelphia stationery store owner H.L. Lipman patented something that seems ...

A class of fifth-graders from Green Acres Elementary in Lebanon, Ore., asked us to find out how pencil lead is made. That quest took us all the way back to the dawn of the universe and then all the ...

Consider the pencil. The ubiquitous, yellow (mostly), 7-inch, two-for-a-quarter lead pencil — the simplest, most convenient, least expensive of all writing instruments. The most useful, least ...

Add articles to your saved list and come back to them any time. One day, early in the 20th century, in pre-revolutionary Russia, a little boy lay ill in bed in St Petersburg. He was called Vladimir ...