Robertson's black-lump adventure began in 1969 after he graduated from the University of Texas, where the tall linebacker was an All-American football player and captain of the Cotton Bowl-winning 1968 team.

FORBES: Fuel's paradise

Robertson's black-lump adventure began in 1969 after he graduated from the University of Texas, where the 6-foot-1-inch linebacker was an All-American football player and captain of the Cotton Bowl-winning 1968 team.

FORBES: Fuel's Paradise

The great majority of it was destined for Lancashire which (in turn) produced two-thirds of all the cotton fabric that was traded.

ECONOMIST: Cotton

Last year, when cotton prices hit an all-time high due to a global supply crunch, manufacturers first raised prices, then used less cotton and more blended fabrics such as poly-cotton.

CNN: India lifts ban on cotton exports

By 1861 the United States was producing two-thirds of all the raw cotton exported around the world.

ECONOMIST: Cotton

Mirrors, coral, cotton cloth and paper--all central materials for "traditional" African arts--came from contact with Europeans.

FORBES: Fifth Anniversary

On a recent December morning there were teens picking cotton in nearly all of a half-dozen Monsanto farms in Uyyalawada, 250 miles south of India's high-tech hub Hyderabad.

FORBES: Magazine Article

The T-shirts are all made with 100% Fairtrade certified cotton.

BBC: Sport Relief is back - and it's coming to a place near you!

Lowe's store has a window-decor aisle with a 32-foot-long display of valances, tiers and cotton drapes, all of which you can take home immediately.

FORBES: Merchant Princes

All that began to crumble on October 2nd 1944, the day of the first public demonstration of mechanical cotton-picking in Clarksdale, Mississippi.

ECONOMIST: The Delta region