Botanical Gardens
When the Spaniards first visited the City of Tenochtitlan, they could not believe their own eyes. The extraordinary botanical gardens of the Mexica influenced Europeans to create their own botanical gardens in the 1520's.

Chewing Gum
Quick! What was the first commercially available chewing gum in the U.S.? If you guessed Wrigley's Doublemint, guess again. The first over-the-counter gum was spruce sap, introduced to New England colonists by Native Americans. But even Wrigley's fortune traces its roots to Indian innovation, in the form of the key ingredient chicle. The Aztecs chewed this latex, found in the sapodilla tree.

Chocolate
Two thousand years ago the Maya cooked up Earth's first chocolate from cacao beans. The chocolate of the Maya, Toltec, and Aztec Indians generally took the form of a bitter drink. Sugar was added later to suit European palates.

Fertilizer
When Spanish invaders landed in what is now the nation of Mexico, the Aztecs were already making use of fertilizer, which was unknown to the rest of the world at that time.

Freeze-Drying
The Inca of South America froze potatoes atop high mountains, which evaporated the moisture inside the tubers. Freeze-drying preserved the potatoes for years and helped Spanish colonists to ship "fresh" potatoes all the way back to Europe by boat.

Popcorn
Having developed varieties of corn that exploded into a taste sensation, some Native Americans developed equally intriguing methods of cooking the snack. Some Indians shoved a stick through a dried cob and held it over the fire, weenie-roast style. And in South America the Moche made popcorn poppers out of pottery.

World's Produce
(Three fifths of) the world's leading food crops can be traced to plants first domesticated by Indians. Native farmers introduced Europeans to a cornucopia of nutritious plants, including potatoes, peanuts, manioc, beans, tomatoes, sunflowers, and yams. Maize, or corn, was by far the most significant contribution, now grown on every continent except Antarctica.

Vanilla
Indians in what is now Mexico were the first to figure out how to turn the pods of the vanilla orchid into the flavor that launched a thousand soft-serve cones. In fact, Indians were so attached to the taste that they kept the recipe under wraps for hundreds of years after the Spanish arrived.

Calendars
The Olmecs and Mayans created the most accurate systems of telling time in the world. The Aztecs used a 365 day calendar over 100 years before Europeans.

The Concept of Zero
The Mayans understood the concept of the number 0 and were using it in math for thousands of years before the Europeans were introduced to it.

Astronomy and Astrology
The Native Americans of the Western hemisphere were the greatest astronomers in the world prior to the invasion. They knew of all the planets before any Europeans did, and built large buildings solely for stargazing.

Round Earth
The Mayans and Olmecs knew that the Earth was round somewhere between 1500 BCE and 3000 BCE, or approximately 3,000 to 4,500 years before it was accepted in Europe.

Sign Language
The Plains Indians used sign language for intertribal communication. Instead of having to learn many different languages, the various tribes decided to use sign language to communicate with one another.

Parkas
Today's ski jackets owe their origins in part to hooded coats Inuit [Eskimo] women fashioned from layers of skins that trapped air for greater insulation. Many parkas were made from caribou, a fur favored for its heat-holding properties.

Snow Goggles
Some 2,000 years before goggles became an Alpine fashion must, the Inuit [Eskimos] created their own versions. Some examples are carved from walrus tusks, with narrow slits that helped thwart glare from snow and the sea.

Duck Decoys
Constructed of feathers and reeds, 2,000-year-old duck decoys were found in Nevada in 1924. Archaeologists believe that early native hunters used them to lure waterfowl much as hunters use plastic decoys today.

Moccasins
Moccasin styles were once so distinctive that they could reveal a person's tribe. (Fringe may have helped erase footprints.) Now native-inspired shoe designs can be found worldwide, from lightweight cowhide moccasins to toasty mukluks, named for the original sealskin or reindeer-skin boots worn by Eskimos.

Camouflage
Throughout the Americas, Indians mastered the art of blending in as a tactic for both hunting and warfare. Many hunters would paint their faces and/or wear the skins of the animals they were stalking. And like many bird hunters today, some Native Americans concealed themselves behind blinds.

Surgery
Native Americans of the Western Hemisphere were the first to perform surgery on a human being.

Mummification
The world's oldest mummy was found in "the Americas." This is proof that indigenous American mummification preceded Egyptian mummification by many years.

Syringes
We're not sure how they said, "This won't hurt a bit." But we do know that some ancient North American native healers injected medicine beneath the skin. Making the most of the materials at hand, they fashioned hypodermic needles out of hollow bird bones and small animal bladders.

Dental Care
North American Indians scrubbed their teeth with the ragged ends of sticks, while the Aztec Indians applied salt and charcoal to their choppers.

Ball Games
Were the Maya and Aztec sports fanatics? Having found ancient rubber balls, ceremonial courts, and depictions of ballplayers in Mesoamerica—the parts of the Americas inhabited by advanced peoples before the arrival of Columbus—archaeologists think both cultures revered certain ball games.

Basketball
The Aztecs invented a game called ollamalitzli hundreds of years before "American" basketball was created. The Aztecs were playing basketball centuries before it was introduced in the United States.

Hockey
The Mapuches of South American played hockey long before it was supposedly invented by Canadians.

Pyramids
The most massive pyramid in the world was built in modern-day Mexico by Native Americans. The world's oldest pyramid is located in South America at a site known as Caral. This pyramid pre-dates ancient Egyptian pyramids by several years.