While japan and China are most famous for growing and training bonsai, the growing of miniature trees can be traced as far back as ancient Egypt. And it’s illustrated in tomb paintings. Doing a search on it for you; I found several references to tomb paintings of trees modeled into items from ancient Egypt.

The Bonsai Garden also makes some reference to it and that is here: http://www.thebonsaigarden.com/philosophy.php?lang=EN. While another site: http://www.journal-a-day.com/t/bonsai%20trees – references it as well.

Amazon has some good books on the historical aspects of it too.

I have two tropical bonsai at the moment as I have no outdoors to keep them in. I have a ficus retusa tree, also called banyan or fig tree. I also have a Serissa, also called Tree of a Thousand Stars. Actually it’s full official name is Serissa Foetida. I didn’t find out until after I bought it that Foetida is the Latin for ‘stinking’! Actually it’s not so bad but it is supposed to emit a very strong odor when you disturb the roots during repotting.

The ficus in particular is a great tree to keep indoors. I have mine a month now. I took a cutting off it three weeks ago and put it in water and its already started to grow roots, so I should have a second one soon!