Mead in Poland which the 12th-century chronicler Gallus Anonymus described as "flowing with honey". This abundance of honey and a climate ill-suited for grape growing meant that mead was long more popular than wine. In 996, the Sephardi Jewish traveller Ibrahim ibn Yaqub wrote that "besides food, meat and land for ploughing, the country of Mieszko I abounds in mead, which is what the Slavic wines and intoxicating drinks are called". In the 15th century, the Venetian diplomat Ambrogio Contarini observed that "having no wine, [the Poles] make a certain drink out of honey, which intoxicates people much more than wine." The 16th-century
George J. Mead Jennie Henrietta Mathilda LeMann Mead. He graduated from the Choate School in Wallingford, CT in 1911 and attended Massachusetts Institute of Technology, but left in 1915 without graduating, owing to health problems. Mead worked for well over a year at Sterling Engine Company of Buffalo, NY. His next job was with the Crane-Simplex company of New Brunswick, NJ, builders of the Simplex automobile. Crane-Simplex later merged with the Wright-Martin Aeronautical Corporation where Mead was in charge of the experimental division of the engineering department. In 1919 he became chief engineer of what was now the Wright Aeronautical Corporation upon the