who created the first shoe

 

who created the first shoe

Many people don't realize that shoes have been around for a very long time. Shoes have been around since ancient times, but there's still some mystery as to who made the first shoe.In the world of technology and science, one name stands out: Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519). Da Vinci was an inventor and artist. He created many inventions, including a helicopter and a robot named "the Engineer", but he also was interested in creating footwear. He didn't make shoes because he wanted to -- rather, it was because his father told him that "he who makes shoes well can make anything".

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If you have ever wondered when or how the first shoe was created, the answer might come as a surprise. In ancient Egypt, people wore sandals with thick soles, made from papyrus reeds. The word ‘sandal’ comes from the ancient Egyptian word “khadis” which means to cross over or put something on top of something else.

In pre-historic times, shoes were worn by women in high society and for ceremonial purposes - men didn't wear them at all. The first attempts to cover feet with leather date from Neolithic times when footwear was made from animal skins that were treated with grease and wax for waterproofing purposes.

If you were to find yourself so unfortunate as to be born before the dawn of the Common Era, you would encounter quite an array of astonishing footwear. For example, back then people mainly wore sandals made with straps that went between their toes or they strapped on a single, large slab of leather.

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So who is behind the modern shoe? The credit is shared among three men: A shoemaker in Argentina named Juan Cabanillas; Charles Goodyear Jr., an American inventor born in 1864; and another Argentine shoemaker by the name of Bartolome Mitre "Bart" Constante. It was he who invented rubber heels for shoes which revolutionized foot protection and created a global industry worth billion.

The first shoe was made by the Egyptians. They used thin, pliable leather shaped to form a sandal by sewing strips of it together around the foot. Women used to wrap their feet in thin fabric before putting on their shoes. Romans also made shoes from animal skins sewn together with cords, at least until the 6th century when they started using leather instead of cloth.

The earliest example of a shoe is found on the human foot with the oldest known surviving shoe (or boot) dating to c.3,500 BC and attributed to Ötzi the Iceman. The word "shoe" comes from Old English sōd, a word that appears around AD 725 and was pronounced without the t sound. The theory is that people who spoke this dialect took their shoes off while they ate lunch outside so they didn’t have to wash their feet before eating.