Bulletproof Poles

 Jan Szczepanik, testing his 
bulletproof vest in 1901

In the days of the Wild, Wild West, a Tombstone, Arizona physician  named George E. Goodfellow noticed that a man was saved from a gun shot by his silk handkerchief in his breast pocket. It prevented the bullet from penetrating. In 1887, he wrote an article titled Impenetrability of Silk to Bullets for the Southern California Practitioner documenting the first known instance of bulletproof fabric. In medieval days gambesons, which used up to 30 layers of silk fabric protected the wearers from sword blade penetration.

In come the Poles.

Fr. Kazimierz Żegleń used Goodfellow's findings to develop a bulletproof vest made of silk fabric at the end of the 19th century, which could stop the relatively slow rounds from black powder handguns. The vests cost $800 each in 1914, a small fortune at the time, equivalent of $18,710 in today's dollars. 

On 28 June 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, was wearing a silk bulletproof vest when he was attacked by a gun-wielding assassin. He was shot in the neck and the vest did not protect him. Thus, started WWI.

Jan Szczepanik 1872- 1926

A similar vest, made by Polish inventor Jan Szczepanik in 1901, saved the life of Alfonso XIII of Spain when he was shot by an attacker. Jan had quite a bit of fabric knowledge due to his work perfecting the Jacquard loom from France.

The Polish inventor, had several hundred patents and over 50 discoveries to his name, many of which are still applied today, especially in the motion picture industry, as well as in photography and television. Some of his concepts helped the future evolution of TV broadcasting, such as the telectroscope (an apparatus for distant reproduction of images and sound using electricity) or the wireless telegraph, which greatly affected the development of telecommunications. He died in Tarnów in the reborn Second Polish Republic.

It's interesting to note the modern Kevlar vest was developed by another Pole, Stephanie Kwolek working for DuPont in 1965. 

She was born near Pittsburgh of Polish immigrants in 1923 and has won numerous awards for her work in polymer chemistry.

Kwolek attributes her interest in science to her father and an interest in fashion to her mother, Nellie Zajdel Kwolek.

She became the fourth woman to be added to the National Inventors Hall of Fame.