When you picture the blackboard from your school years, what color is it?
Chances are, it's green. So what's up with the name?
Originally, blackboards really were black.
Before wall-sized chalkboards existed, late 18th-century students used their own mini boards made of slate or painted wood. Those first boards were, in fact, black, and they paved the way for the larger ones.
The massive, wall-sized chalkboards arrived in 1800 when a Scottish headmaster named James Pillans wanted his students to draw maps.
The students couldn't fit the maps their teacher wanted on their tiny boards, so Pillans put a bunch of slates together to create a single, large board. Problem solved!
From there, the idea spread quickly as teachers could finally show a concept to the whole class at one time.
By 1815, the massive writing spaces were common enough to earn their own name: blackboard.
Manufacturers saw how important they were and by 1840, giant pieces of slate were being shipped to American and European schools.
The color change came in the 1960s when companies sold steel plates coated with green porcelain-based enamel instead of the traditional dark slate. The new material was lighter and less fragile than the first blackboards, so they were cheaper to ship and more likely to survive the journey.
Teachers weren't complaining either. After all, the new "greenboards" made the chalk powder easier to erase fully.
Plus, the enamel left less of a glare and the color was nicer to look at.
At that point, people started using the word "chalkboard" as a more accurate descriptor, but "blackboard" still stuck around.