Ed Catmull, from Pixar, invented the texture mapping technique in 1974. It is regarded as a breakthrough in 3D Computer Graphic. I admire this because it evokes sense of touching by sight and gives more vivid feeling to a flat object. The technique is widely used in animation. It brings life to millions of cartoon characters. Texture coordinates(generated by some functions) are added to the original vertex. Besides that, colors are changed accordingly. Several techniques are evolved including forward texture mapping, inverse texture mapping, affine texture mapping, etc. It is still in progress for it is not capable of accomplishing some complicated surfaces vividly.
More texture mapping knowledge from CMU