The oldest cotton balls were found in the caves of Mexico by some scientists. Those cotton balls were proven to be more than 7,000 years old. From 3000 BC onwards cotton had been grown, spun, and woven into fabric in the Indus River Valley in modern-day Pakistan. At about the same time, natives of Egypt’s Nile valley were making and wearing cotton clothing.
Around 800 AD, Arabs introduced cotton clothes in Europe. Columbus found cotton growing in the Bahamas Islands in 1492, during his voyage. Varieties of coloured cotton produced in India were imported by the British from 1612. It was in 1730 that cotton was first spun by machinery in England. The industrial revolution in England, and the invention of the cotton gin in the US, gave a push to cotton production all over the world.
Cotton was expensive in the early days due to its rarity, but the mechanization of cotton trade made it less expensive than wool by the 19th century.
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