HISTORY OF SUNGLASSES

Would you believe sunglasses existed before 1430? 
    Smoke tinting was the first means of darkening eyeglasses, and the technology was developed in China. The first darkened lenses were not vsion-corrected, nor were they initially intended to reduce solar glare. They served another purpose altogether.

    For centuries, Chinese judges wore smoke-colored quartz lenses to conceal their eye expressions in court. A judge's evaluation of evidence as credible or mendacious was to remain secret until a trial's conclusion. Smoke-tinted lenses came to serve also as sunglasses, but that was never their primary function. And around 1430, when vision-correcting eyeglasses were introduced into China from Italy, they, too, were darkened, though mainly for judicial use.
    The popularity of sunglasses is really a twentieth-century phenomenon. In America, the

military, which played a role in the development of sunscreens, also was at the forefront of sunglass technology.