¹     Is your favorite color Macaroni and Cheese? Perhaps it is Shamrock or Jazzberry Jam? Maybe you like Cerulean or Purple Heart? Or maybe your favorite color is blue or red? All of these colors can be found in a Crayola crayon box. The Crayola brand of crayons started in 1903. The first box had 8 crayons in it. The colors were black, brown, blue, red, purple, orange, yellow, and green. Today, Crayola makes more than 120 colors.
 
²     Crayola crayons were invented by Edwin Binney and C. Harold Smith. They were cousins. They invented other things before crayons. They invented a powder that was added to paint to give it color. The first color was red. It was used to paint barns. Next was black. It was used to paint car tires. The tires used to be white.
 
³     Binney and Smith invented slate pencils. These were used in schools. They also invented chalk and dustless chalk. They saw that schools needed better wax crayons. They made the crayons smaller. They added different colors to the wax. Crayola crayons were born. Edwin's wife came up with the Crayola name. The name means "oily chalk" in French.

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