History of glass
The history of glass-making dates back to at least 3600 years ago in Mesopotamia. However, they may have been producing second-rate copies of glass objects from Egypt, where this complex craft originated. Other archaeological evidence suggests that the first true glass was made in coastal north Syria, Mesopotamia or Egypt. The earliest known glass objects, of the mid second millennium BC, were beads, perhaps initially created as the accidental by-products of metal-working (slags) or during the production of faience, a pre-glass vitreous material made by a process similar to glazing. Glass products remained a luxury until the disasters that overtook the late Bronze Age civilizations seemingly brought glass-making to a halt.
Laminated glass
Laminated glass was invented in 1903 by the French chemist Édouard Bénédictus (1878-1930), inspired by a laboratory accident. A glass flask had become coated with the plastic cellulose nitrate and when dropped shattered but did not break into pieces. However, it was not until 1909 that Benedictus filed a patent, after hearing about a car accident where two women were severely injured by glass debris
. In 1911, he formed the "Société du Verre Triplex", which fabricated a glass-plastic composite to reduce injuries in car accidents.. Production of Triplex glass was slow and painstaking, making it expensive. It was not immediately widely adopted by automobile manufacturers, but laminated glass was widely used in the eyepieces of gas masks during World War I. In 1912, the process was licensed to "The English Triplex Safety Glass Company". Subsequently, in the United States, both Libbey Owens-Ford and Du Pont de Nemours with Pittsburg Plate Glass produced Triplex.