Basket

The impermanence of the materials means that the earliest surviving fragments of baskets (from a cave in Utah) date only from about 7000 BC, but the craft is almost certainly practiced considerably earlier. Around the same time baskets for storing grain and other possessions were being used in the Middle East.

The earliest known record of a carousel device is a Byzantine etching from 500 AD which portrays riders swinging in baskets tied to a center pole.

Henry III of France frequently appeared with a basket of puppies hanging from his neck.

The first fire escape was patented in 1766. It consisted of a wicker basket on a pulley and chain.

When Canadian YMCA trainer James Naismith set out to invent a game to occupy students between the football and baseball seasons in 1891, he nailed two peach baskets on opposite ends of the Spring College gym in Massachusetts, thus providing the name "basketball."

The term "Basket case" indicating a state of helplessness came from World War I slang for soldiers who had lost all their limbs and, as a result, needed to be carried in a litter or basket.

A girl, in the Vacococha tribe of Peru, to prepare her for marriage at the age of 12, is placed in a basket in the hut of her prospective in-laws and must remain suspended over an open fire night and day for three months.

In the Netherlands, you can be fined for not using a shopping basket at a grocery store. This is to prevent items from being dropped and broken, and to make it easier for customers to move around the store. If you are caught not using a basket, you can be fined up to €95.

The corgis owned by Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom mostly spend the night in their own room. They sleep in wicker baskets raised slightly off the ground to avoid drafts.