● The first known glass bottle was made in 1500 BC in the land of Mesopotamia. This is where the technique of blowing air into hot gobs of glass to create hollowed spaces was first used, although the technique had been created in Syria some 1500 years before. It had never been used to make glass bottles until now.
● Ancient glass was made using Natron, a naturally occurring material that was composed of sodium carbonate decahydrate and a little touch of sodium sulfate and sodium chloride.
● Things started taking a new shape when the Romans got their hands-on glass-making techniques. They further refined the blowing style from the Syrians and started making the first form of commercial bottles that were mostly used to store wines. A big change from using earthen containers for this. The oldest unopened bottle of wine is a 1700-year-old Roman-made bottle that was discovered in Germany.
● The Roman techniques were lost for a while before they were reviewed by the North-Western and Central European inhabitants. They started mass-producing what was known as forest glass in their rudimentary factories for years, refining the art further as the years flew past.
● In the late middle ages, the first forms of transparent glass bottles were created in Southern Germany and Switzerland. Before that, all bottles used to be colored depending on the materials used to make them. No one had figured out making clear ones.
● After that, the pace of glass making rapidly accelerated around the world. Rumors have it that the first glass beer bottle was made by accident by Dr. Alexander Nowell in England in 1568. He had taken a sealed bottle of beer with him on a fishing trip but forgot it by the river bank. On returning the next day, he discovered the beer had been carbonated.
● George Ravenscroft, another Englishman, discovered the lead glass, and this opened up new possibilities for what glass containers could be used for. This replaced the Venetian glass that had been the standard for many years.
● In 1774, Joseph Priestly, a scientist, accidentally used a glass bottle to discover how oxygen can be detected. This again opened up the world of science, and it wasn’t long before it was discovered that most glass bottles could be used to conduct experiments featuring chemicals that would have corroded any other material.
● Over the years, glass bottles have evolved into the most diverse equipment that has completely changed how people interact with their world.
