Chair

In ancient Greece the basic chair was the klismos, a simple seat with a curving back and sharply curving legs. This handsome design was widely copied during the revival of early Greek style in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

A folding chair of ebony and ivory with gold fittings was found in Tutankhamun's tomb in Egypt.

During the Middle Ages chairs were few in number and people sat on stones or benches. Their ownership remained a sign of high social status, a good example being the coronation chair of about 1300 in Westminster Abbey.

The Windsor chair, which had developed earlier in England, was a universal form of seating furniture in America during the last half of the 18th century.

Benjamin Franklin invented the rocking chair.

The first swivel chair was invented by Thomas Jefferson, and he sat on it when he drafted the United States Deceleration of Independence.

Charlotte Brontë was the first person to use the term ‘kitchen chair'’

Waldo Hanchett invented the modern dentist's chair in 1848.

The Centripetal Spring Armchair of 1849, one of the first modern office chairs, was unsuccessful outside the US because it was considered immorally comfortable.

Charles Darwin was one of the first people to put wheels on an office chair. The naturalist put wheels on the chair in his study so he could get to his specimens more quickly.

German chancellor Otto von Bismarck is credited with popularizing the office chair by distributing them throughout parliament during his time in office.

The French actress Sarah Bernhardt had a hobby of collecting chairs. She used to buy chairs everywhere filling them in all the homes that she lived in. After a flight on a balloon she wrote a book entitled Dans les nuages, impressions d'une chaise (In clouds, impressions of a chair).

The Anglo-Chinese School in Singapore holds the record for the most number of people in a musical chairs event, which took place in 1989.  8,238 students, teachers and assorted other people took part in the event.

The world record for rocking non-stop in a rocking chair is held by Sri Lanka-born Canadian Arulanantham Suresh Joachim. He rocked on a rocking chair continuously for 75 hours  minutes from 24-27 August 2005 at the Hilton Garden Inn, Mississauga, Ontario, Canada. To stay awake, he played the guitar and read about golf. His family were present in the room the entire time.

The 1930s era oak chair sat on by JK Rowling when she wrote the first two Harry Potter books sold at auction for £278,000 in 2016. In its letter of authentication, the author wrote: "My sentimental side is quite sad to see it go, but my back isn’t."