Domesticated cotton first came into widespread use in ancient India around 3000 BC. Much Indian cotton cloth had a simple weave to take advantage of the material's lightness and airiness; it was then dyed and printed by hand using wood blocks that had patterns cut into them. Indian textiles have influenced textiles of other regions from antiquity through the modern era.
One type of printed cotton fabric, called calico by Europeans (after an Indian textile center named Calicut), was exported from India to Europe in large quantities in the 16th century. Imported Indian cotton became extremely fashionable and undermined the European woolen cloth industry. This helped stimulate the Industrial Revolution of the 18th century, as Europeans tried to develop ways of producing cotton cloth by machine more cheaply than it could be made by hand in India.