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History of the Button
There's a piece of clothing technology on your shirt right now that's over five thousand years old — and for most of that history, it did nothing at all.
The button sat on clothing for four millennia as pure decoration. It didn't fasten a single garment until the 13th century, when an anonymous person somewhere in Germany cut a small slit into fabric and stitched the edge so it wouldn't fray.
That reinforced hole — not the button — changed how humans dress forever. In this episode of Hidden History, we follow the button from the Indus Valley to Renaissance sumptuary laws, from Napoleon's…
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