How did silk come about

More than 5,000 years ago, the Chinese discovered how to make silk by boiling and unravelling silkworm cocoons. For about 3,000 years, they managed to keep this discovery a secret. Because poor people could not afford real silk, they tried to make other cloth look silky: folks would beat cotton with sticks to soften the fibers. Then they rubbed it against large stones to make it shiny. This shiny cotton was called "chintz." Because chintz was a poor imitation of silk, the term "chintzy" is now used to refer to something that it is cheap and not of high quality.