History of pencil

The modern pencil was first invented in 1795 by Nicholas-Jacques Conte, who's a scientist serving in the army of Napoleon Bonaparte. 

The magic material that was so appropriate for the purpose was the form of pure carbon that we call graphite. It this material was first discovered in Europe, in Bavaria at the start of the 15th century. despite the fact that the Aztecs had used it as a marker several hundred years earlier. It was initially believed to be a form of lead and was called ‘plumbago’ or black lead (so the ‘plumbers’ who mend our lead water-carrying pipes), a misnomer that still echoes in our talk of pencil ‘leads’. 

This stuff was called graphite only in 1789, using the Greek word of ‘graphein’ meaning ‘to write’. Well, the pencil is an older word, derived from the Latin language ‘pencillus’, meaning ‘little tail’, to describe the small ink brushes  that were used for writing in the Middle Ages.