History
Significant factors in the development of armour include the economic and technological necessities of armour production. For instance, plate armour first appeared in Medieval Europe when water-powered trip hammers made the formation of plates faster and cheaper. Also, modern militaries usually do not equip their forces with the best armour available, since it would be prohibitively expensive. At times the development of armour has run parallel to the development of increasingly effective weaponry on the battlefield, with armourers seeking to create better protection without sacrificing mobility.
Well known armour types in European history include the lorica hamata, lorica squamata, and the lorica segmentata of the Roman legions, the mail hauberk of the early medieval age, and the full steel plate harness worn by later medieval and renaissance knights, and breast and back plates worn by heavy cavalry in several European countries until the first year of World War I (1914–15). The samurai warriors of feudal Japan utilized many types of armour for hundreds of years up to the 19th century.
Read more about this topic: Leather Armour, Personal
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—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
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“The history of work has been, in part, the history of the worker’s body. Production depended on what the body could accomplish with strength and skill. Techniques that improve output have been driven by a general desire to decrease the pain of labor as well as by employers’ intentions to escape dependency upon that knowledge which only the sentient laboring body could provide.”
—Shoshana Zuboff (b. 1951)