1.The olive tree is native to the Mediterranean, where olive oil has been an important part of life for thousands of years.
2.In Ancient Greece, women applied olive oil to their skin and hair after bathing as protection from the elements and to maintain a pleasant fragrance.
3.In Homer's Odyssey, the Phaeacian princess Nausicaa carries a golden flask filled with olive oil. She and her maids anoint themselves with the oil after bathing in the river.
4.In Homer's Iliad, Hera removes cleans her skin with ambrosia and anoints herself with olive oil.
5.The women of Ancient Greece created eye shadow by mixing ground charcoal with olive oil.
6.Dead bodies were often anointed with olive oil to mask the smell.
7.In Homer's Iliad, Aphrodite anoints the dead body of Hector with rose-scented olive oil.
8.During training and competition, Greek athletes slathered their naked bodies in olive oil and a light dusting of sand in order to protect their skin from the sun and to regulate body temperature.
After training or competition, the athlete would then scrape the oil, sweat, and sand from their skin with a tool called a strigil.
9.Hippocrates called olive oil "the great therapeutic."
In the Bible, King Solomon pays for wood to build his temple with olive oil, wine, barley, and wheat.
10.Castile soap made from olive oil is believed to have originated in Castile, Spain (the territory was known then as the Kingdom of Castile).
Christopher Columbus introduced olive oil to the Americas in 1492. Olive oil was unavailable in the United States until Italian and Greek immigrants began importing it from their home countries.
