The apple: Forbidden fruit, royal insignia, record label and tech logo

The perhaps most popular apple of the 21st century is the Apple Inc. logo of an apple with a bite taken out of it, designed in 1977 by Rob Janoff. Apple co-founder Steve Jobs had the idea for the company name. He was, Jobs said, on one of his "fruitarian diets," and came up with the name on his way back from a visit to an apple farm.

It all began in paradise: The "parents of all mankind" made a fatal mistake, from a Biblical point of view, by ignoring God's orders not to eat the fruit from the tree of knowledge. Eve picked an apple, took a bite, and made Adam take a bite, too.

In Greek mythology, this particular apple led to a dispute among the goddesses and eventually to the Trojan War. Young Trojan prince Paris was called on to judge who was the most beautiful: Aphrodite, Athene or Hera. All three tried to bribe him, with Aphrodite offering the love of the world's most beautiful woman. Paris awarded her the golden apple.

Legend has it that British scientist and mathematician Isaac Newton was sitting under an apple tree when an apple fell on his head - which made him think about the powers of gravity that forced the apple down and not up or sideways. The event supposedly inspired a brilliant idea: the Law of Universal Gravitation.

Emperors and kings have been depicted holding an orb topped by a cross for many hundreds of years; sometimes the royal insignia tops crowns. So where does the apple come in? Take a close look at the shape of the orb: In German, the orb of the world is called "Reichsapfel," which literally means "apple of the empire."

In many cultures, the apple symbolizes eternal life, for instance in northern European and Greek mythology. Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree," Martin Luther allegedly said.

German playwright Friedrich Schiller wrote "Wilhelm Tell," a drama about the legendary Swiss national hero who rebelled against a bloodthirsty tyrant. The 19th-century play is critical of society and still very much up to date. Tell was forced to shoot an apple off his own son's head as a punishment for disobedience.

Resentful of her stepdaughter's beauty, the evil queen poisoned an apple to kill the girl in the Grimm fairy tale Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. Snow White took a bite, and dropped, as if dead. Lying in a glass coffin, though, she coughed up the apple lodged in here throat just in time - and lived happily ever after.

In 1968, The Beatles founded their own record label, and named it Apple Records. The logo, a bright green Granny Smith apple, first showed up on the band's legendary "White Album" that same year. Apple Records sued Apple, the consumer electronics company, several times for trademark infringement.