Eraser day, honoring the little tool that lets us start over

Today, and April 15th annually, is Eraser Day in Japan. It celebrates the humble too that quietly supports creativity, learning and second chances.

The date of the anniversary was chosen because on this day in 1770 British chemist Joseph Priestly discovered that natural rubber from Brazil could erase pencil marks - a simple observation that changed the writing culture forever. Before this discovery, people in Europe used hardened bread to rub out mistakes, a method that worked surprisingly well but lacked durability. 

Erasers spread alongside pencil culture in Europe and America, eventually reaching Japan in the early Meiji era, when Western educational systems were adopted.  Reportedly, Japan's first domestically produced eraser was made in a small workshop in Tokyo in 1886. Later, in 1959, it was in Japan that the plastic eraser was developed and became the global standard.