Sunglasses, in their early forms, have been around far longer than any movie star or trendsetter would believe. The history of sunglasses dates back over 2,000 year, if you believe the rumors about Roman Emperor Nero, who supposedly would hold green gems over his eyes while taking in some entertainment in the Coliseum so he could see better from his lofty perch. The gems of course did not have any mechanism to improve his vision, but rather they were purportedly used by the famous Nero to reduce the power of the sun hitting his eyes.

Beyond that, a painting from Italy in the mid 1300s depicts a man wearing a form of sunglasses, making it the first documented proof of sunglasses being used. These precursors to the sunglasses of today were far simpler and did little to protect one’s eyes from UV rays, which nothing was known about, or to improve one’s vision, which was a development still in the works.

It took almost another hundred years until 1430 when the first actual prescription level sunglasses were produced. These sunglasses still were not nearly effective as anything found today but they spread around the globe. They spread to many places, including China, although they had their own form of sunglasses already in use at the time.

Dating back several hundred years farther than the Italian prescription sunglasses were cloudy quartz panes worn over the eyes by Chinese judges and officials. The purpose of these was to conceal the eyes, and thus the thought processes and emotions (and on another level, the compassion or humanity) of the judges.

By the middle of the 18th century, in London, a man by the name of James Ayscough, who had made his fame working with microscopes began experimenting with lenses for another purpose. Instead of making things smaller, he was working with glasses which of course make things clearer and as a result look bigger and more defined. He tinted glass in ranges of blues and greens in trying to improve people’s vision.

Across the ocean, inventor Ben Franklin was soon to be working on his latest innovation, the bifocals. This enabled people to be able to effectively see both up close and distant objects with a slight change of eye level and angle. While this made glasses in general much more effective and commonly used, sunglasses would take another 150 years to break out with the public at large.

The first popular and mass produced sunglasses were made by Foster Grant in 1929. These began catching on and movie stars began wearing them; although probably not for the reason you think. The shining bright lights of the slow film used at that time actually could injure and hurt the eyes of many actors, and so sunglasses helped to decrease pain and sensitivity when outside.

Just years later the United States military set out to have a more effective pair of sunglasses built for their new eyes in the sky, the pilots and crew of the early Air Force. After the first attempt, the famous Aviator sunglasses were developed by Ray Ban and by the time World War II ended, were a signal of everything cool. The fashion trend was born, and today sunglasses can be used for many reasons, style