By the 17th century, the walls of the court were painted with a noisome cocktail of ox-blood, ox-gall, lamp black and a bucket of urine: soon afterwards, tennis became unfashionable and all but disappeared to be revived as a modified, open-air sport, in the wake of the invention of the lawn-mower, by Major Wingfield in the 1870s.

ECONOMIST: History of the net

In 1989 Dow's materials-engineering center beat out GE for the chance to build, using plastics, a riding lawn mower for John Deere.

FORBES: Chemical transformation

In 1989 Dow's materials-engineering center beat out General Electric for the chance to build, using plastics, a riding lawn mower for John Deere.

FORBES: Chemical Transformation