>"No one knows who first conceived the simple and extraordinary notion of harnessing the wind to grind corn, but it seems to have taken place in Persia sometime around the sixth or seventh century.
Except there was no corn in Persia in the sixth or seventh century, since corn came from the Americas.
There was no maize, but traditionally the word corn can refer to any grain.
Which is still the primary sense in UK English [1], if I'm not mistaken (I'm a US speaker, so I can't confirm firsthand).