Hat is an object close to our daily life. Although long time ago, people began to wear it, few people know thehistory and legends related to hats. People often take it for granted that hats are only a common product in the devel-opment of human society, while it is not the case.The History and Legend of Hats
Some sixteen hundred years ago, the boss of a work crew putting up a monument in the Circus Maximus in Romeordered his men to put on helmets to protect their heads from falling things. Those Roman laborers of the reign ofConstantine the Great may have been the first to wear work helmets.
The metal headgear worn by todays building crews, utility linemen （养路工） and others in the constructiontrades is patterned upon the army helmets of the two recent World Wars. Those, in turn, date back to the helmetsworn by the warriors of ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome.
Metal helmets grew from the ones early Europeans made of boiled leather. The leather was boiled in water, orsometimes in oil and steamed for hardness. It usually was stretched over a wooden frame and often reinforced withmetal. Later on, bands of iron were added and the all-metal helmet developed.
In one material or another, the helmet shape has provided work hats for many trades, ranging from divers, bee-keepers and old-time aviators to modern astronauts who journey into outer space. It also is the hat of many sports, in-eluding football, motorcycling, auto racing and polo.
There was a time when men of nearly every trade or profession could be identified by the work hats they wore.This was true of many early civilizations. During the Renaissance period in Europe, rigid class distinctions set work-ers of one type apart from another and the job a man did often was clearly marked by his style of headgear.
Work hats also became a form of self-advertisement, proudly worn by men of specialized crafts and trades. Eachdeveloped a tradition in hats. Many of these became almost a uniform of a particular type of work. Other hats devel-oped because they suited the special work habits of men who found comfort or protection in wearing them.
Some of them are still worn, but most specialized hats of trade went out of use in the United States around thetime of the First World War and during the 1920s in England. Those that have remain alive generally serve some realpurpose rather than merely as a badge of occupation.
Todays trained nurse wears a modern version of a headdress that first became popular with women of the 14thcentury. In those days it was a pointed, or horned, linen women cap. The medieval cap continued to be worn downthrough the centuries by women who belonged to various religious orders. Since nuns were the first to staff modernhospitals, their headwear become adapted as the nurses cap.
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