Hemp History Timeline
Stone Age (8000 BC) - Hemp use dates back to the Stone Age, with hemp fiber imprints found in pottery shards in China and Taiwan[61] over 7,000 years old. Civilization, agriculture, and hemp textile industries begin in Europe and Asia.
Medieval - In late medieval Germany and Italy, hemp seed was used in cooked dishes, as filling in pies and tortes, or boiled in a soup.
500 BC - Gautama Buddah survives by eating hempseed.
200 BC - Specimens of hemp paper were found in the Great Wall of China.
1150 - Moslems use hemp to start Europe's first paper mill. Most paper is made from hemp for the next 700 years.
1492 - Columbus sailed across the Atlantic with a ship made from 80 tons of hemp sails, caulking and rigging.
1545 - The Spaniards brought hemp to the Western Hemisphere and cultivated it in Chile.
1619 - The first law regulating hemp in America is established, where hemp is perceived as an irreplaceable plant because of its multitude of uses. As a result, the first established laws pertaining to hemp came in the form of "must grow" laws, rather than laws of prohibition.
1631 – Hemp is used as money throughout American colonies.
1776 - American 'Declaration of Independence' is drafted on hemp paper.
1791 - President Washington sets duties on hemp to encourage domestic industry; Jefferson calls hemp "a necessity", and urges farmers to grow hemp instead of tobacco.
1645 - The Puritans cultivated hemp in New England to make clothes, shoes, ropes, and paper.
1800’s - Australia survives two prolonged famines by eating virtually nothing but hemp seed for protein and hemp leaves for roughage.
1850’s - Petrochemical age begins. Toxic sulfite and chlorine processes are implemented to begin making paper from trees.
1873 - Levi Strauss receives rights to patent their denim jeans made from hemp cloth to reinforce points of strain, such as the base of the button fly and pocket corners.
1937 - The Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 is passed in the United States, levying a tax on anyone who dealt commercially in cannabis, hemp, or marijuana.
1941 - Henry Ford makes his first Model T car fabricated and fueled by hemp.
WWII - Hemp was used extensively by the United States for making uniforms, canvas, and rope. The U.S. produced a short 1942 film, Hemp for Victory, promoting hemp as a necessary crop to win the war.
1970 - U.S. Congress designates hemp, along with its relative marijuana, as a “Schedule 1” drug under the Controlled Substances Act, making it illegal to grow without a license from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).
2011 - Today, the U.S. is the only developed country that has not established hemp as an agricultural crop, according to the Congressional Research Service.
*Britain lifted a similar ban in 1993.
*Germany and Canada followed suit soon after.
*The European Union subsidized hemp production since the 1990s.
