Almanac: The pencil and eraser 02:05. And now a page from our "Sunday Morning" Almanac: March 30th, 1858, 156 years ago today . . . the day a Philadelphia inventor made his mark.

6. Pencils with built-in erasers on the tops are a largely American phenomenon. Most pencils sold in Europe are eraser-less.Read into that cultural difference what you will.

Before the discovery of the eraser, people did use bread and bread crumbs to erase pencil marks. Edward Nairne is credited with popularizing the use of rubber, which by his own account, was quite ...

The pencil eraser was patented in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, by Hymen Lipman, a Jewish immigrant from Kingston, Jamiaca, on this day in history, March 30, 1858.

The history of erasers dates back to the 1770s, when bread was the primary tool used to erase pencil markings. People would roll up and moisten bread to remove graphite marks effectively.

A pencil eraser (Alexis Madrigal). It's true, as Arthur C. Clarke said , that the most advanced technologies are indistinguishable from magic. It's not true, however, that the world's most magical ...