The biggest agricultural crop in the world today by total weight is corn

also known as maize corn is a crop of the new world the ancients in China India, Mesopotamia and Rome never knew about corn.

Yet since the Colombian exchange, it's become one of the world's most important

commodities as a source of food, animal feed, and the basis of many manufactured products.

Learn more about corn, aka Mays, where it came from and how it revolutionized the world of agriculture

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That Shopify dot co-de-e-K slash special offer. Special Offer. Before I get too far into this episode, I need to clarify something about the word corn.

In a previous episode on the Lighthouse of Alexandria, I quoted a passage from Julius Caesar's

commentaries. The passage was, quote, the result was that safe access was secured for his

corn supplies and reinforcements. A listener contacted me to correct me pointing out that

Caesar wouldn't have known about corn because it came from the new world. And that is true.

But that's not how the word corn was used in that passage. The word corn's original meaning in English was as a synonym for grain.

In the 19th century, Britain enacted the corn laws which lifted tariffs on all grain imports.

It was the Americans who came to associate the word corn with the particular crop known as maize.

In Britain and some other Commonwealth countries the crop continued to be known as maize even though such terms as popcorn and sweet corn

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