Profound Facts About Potatoes

They caused empires to rise to lofty new heights while nearly destroying others.

We’re not talking about emperors here; we’re talking about the humble potato!

This magic crop really did help empires to grow to never-before-seen sizes, thanks to its reliability.

It also crippled Ireland with famine when a nasty fungus got into all their potatoes.

As you can see, there’s more than meets the eye when it comes to this starchy tuber!

Let’s take a look at these ten profound facts we dug up about the humble potato.

Many people around the world would mistakenly identify Ireland as the source of this incredibly versatile tuber.

While Ireland may have aided in the potato’s rise to international fame, that’s where the country’s involvement stops.

The potato was actually domesticated from a wild plant in a region that includes the northwestern of Bolivia and the south of Peru.

It was completely unknown to the rest of the world until Spain’s conquest of the Americas in the 1600s.

It was brought back to Europe by the Spanish conquistadors sometime around the late 16th Century and was initially viewed with some hesitation.