On December 23 1924, Raymond Dart discovered the Taung skull, which proved humankind began in Africa. Using one of his wife’s knitting needles, he scraped through rock for 73 days to reveal the million-year-old face of an early human baby with a full set of milk teeth. Dart later wrote, "I doubt if there was any parent prouder of his offspring than I was of my Taungs [sic] baby on that Christmas of 1942."