A silk handkerchief in Tombstone inspired the first bulletproof fabric
In 1881 a Tombstone, Arizona doctor named George Goodfellow noticed something odd about a gunshot victim: one bullet had been stopped by a silk handkerchief in his breast pocket. Goodfellow went on to test vests made of 18 to 30 layers of silk, and in 1887 published the first known account of bullet-resistant fabric.
Others had tried soft armour before. In the 1860s, after a French expedition attacked Korea, the Joseon regent ordered protection against Western guns, and Kim Gidu and Gang Yun found that ten layers of cotton could stop bullets. Such vests were worn when the US Navy attacked Ganghwa Island in 1871. One was carried off to America and kept at the Smithsonian until 2007, when it was returned to Korea for public display.
Goodfellow's findings led Kazimierz Zeglen to build a silk vest able to stop slow rounds from black-powder pistols. It was costly, about 800 dollars each in 1914, but by 1900 American gangsters were reportedly wearing them. A similar vest by the Polish inventor Jan Szczepanik saved King Alfonso XIII of Spain when an attacker shot him.
Metal came first, though. In 1538 an Italian mercenary duke commissioned the armourer Filippo Negroli to make a bulletproof vest, and Emperor Maximilian II tested his armour against gunfire in 1561. Oliver Cromwell's Ironside cavalry wore musket-proof breastplates of two layers, an outer one soaking up energy and a thicker inner one stopping the ball; they came away dented but usable. Outlaws improvised too: in 1880 Ned Kelly's gang forged suits from stolen plough parts weighing about 44 kilograms, and Kelly survived at least 18 bullets striking his.
Armies were slow to catch up. Soldiers entered the First World War without body armour, and British medical staff later estimated that three quarters of battle injuries could have been prevented with effective protection. Early British neck guards of resin-stiffened silk and cotton, and heavy German steel plates nicknamed lobster armour, were too costly or cumbersome for wide use. Modern vests pair advanced fibres with ceramic plates.
Source: Bulletproof vest
