The writing instrument that dominated for the longest period in history was the quill pen. Introduced around 700 A.D., the quill is a pen made from a bird feather.
The ball point pen was originally invented for the British RAF, as problems occurred with fountain pens due to the low air pressure aboard planes in flight.
In ancient Greece and Rome much writing was done by scratching the wax coating of a tablet with a stylus–a pointed implement whose blunt end was used to make erasures by smoothing the wax.
