Facts About Shoes

• Sandals originated in warm climates where the soles of the feet needed protection but the top of the foot needed to be cool.
• 4,000 years ago the first shoes were made of a single piece of rawhide that enveloped the foot for both warmth and protection.
• In Europe pointed toes on shoes were fashionable from the eleventh to the fifteenth centuries.
• In the Middle East heels were added to shoes to lift the foot from the burning sand.
• In Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries heels on shoes were always colored red.
• Shoes all over the world were identical until the nineteenth century, when left- and right-footed shoes were first made in Philadelphia.
• In Europe it wasn't until the eighteenth century that women's shoes were different from men's.
• Six-inch-high heels were worn by the upper classes in seventeenth-century Europe. Two servants, one on either side, were needed to hold up the person wearing the high heels.
• Sneakers were first made in America in 1916. They were originally called keds.
• Boots were first worn in cold, mountainous regions and hot, sandy deserts where horse-riding communities lived. Heels on boots kept feet secure in the stirrups.
• The first lady's boot was designed for Queen Victoria in 1840.