Len Rome’s Daily Report on Little-Known Facts
(WYTV) — From Business Insider, Who invented the modern body armor?
A pizza delivery man.
Richard Davis was a Marine but his inspiration for personal protection did not come from a battlefield. It came from delivering pizza to unsafe addresses in Detroit.
Davis was dropping off a pizza on July 15, 1969, when he realized the call had sent him into a dark alley. Three armed men were waiting for him. He was injured twice but escaped with his life and it left him looking for ways to protect himself.
So Davis created the first Kevlar vest, which was much stronger than military nylon.
To test the result, Davis placed a telephone book behind a prototype Kevlar and opened fire. The book went well.
Davis started a business called Second Chance Body Armour, and when he met a potential buyer, Davis would put on the prototype vest, point a gun to his chest, and pull the trigger.
This is what we would call a seller. During all of his displays, Davis ended up shooting himself in the chest 190 times. And who invented Kevlar?
One woman, Stephanie Kwolek, was a chemist with the DuPont Company in Wilmington, Delaware, when she invented the fiber stronger than steel in 1965. It was supposed to go into automobile tires.
