Native Americans first discovered popcom thousands of years ago in Guatemala or Mexico. It was popped in China during Song Dymasty(960-279) as well as in Sumatra and India long before Columbus reached the Americas. In 1519 when he invaded Mexico, Spanish Conquistador Hernando Cortes first saw popcorn when he met the Aztccs. Popcorn was important to the Aztecs as food, as decoration for ceremonial headdresses necklaces, and as ornaments on statues of their gods. Around 1612, French explorers around the Great Lakes met Iroquois who used heated sand in a pottery vessel to make popcorn. There is unproven theory that an Indian named Quadequina brought a deerskin bag of popped com for first Thanksgiving feast on October 15, 1621. 1948 and 1950. anthropologist Herbert Dick and botanist Earle Smith discovered ears of popcom in the Bat Cave of west central New Mexico. The ears measured from smaller than a penny to about 2 inches. They were determined to be about 5,600 ycars old. Colonial housewives served popcom with sugar and cream for breakfast. Some colonists used a cylinder of thin sheet-iron that revolved on an axle in front of the fireplace to make popped com. ,ented the first poncom machine.