533: aquarium May 24, 2016

Archeologists, upon seeing an artifact, could paint pictures about the history of the past, but only with context. Otherwise, it is just an object with little value in and of itself. Etymology follows that same path. To know that 'aquarium' comes from the Latin meaning 'of water' tells little. Though aquaria of marble have been kept under the beds of those thinking back to ancient Rome, the first public aquarium opened in London in 1853, called "The Fish House". It was only in 1854, in "The Aquarium" by Philip Henry Gosse, millennia after the Romans or Chinese, when the word 'aquarium' was used instead of the common 'aquatic vivarium'. From this point, aquaria boomed in popularity, and so did the word.