Hat & Headwear Definitions — hats, caps, helmets and headwear terms from Apparel Search
A helmet is a form of protective clothing worn on the head and usually made of metal or some other hard substance, typically for protection from falling objects or high-speed collisions. Helmets are common in the military, construction, mining and some sports, including American football and rock climbing, and motorcycle and bicycle helmets are compulsory protective headgear in some jurisdictions for riders.
Helmets are among the most ancient forms of protection, and are known to have been worn by ancient Greeks and throughout the Middle Ages; at this time they were primarily military equipment, protecting the head from cutting blows with swords and flying arrows. They were initially constructed from leather, but eventually came to be made entirely from iron, with a variety of functional enhancements. Military use of helmets declined as firearms became widespread, where traditional helmets offered little protection. However, with the increasing use of heavy artillery, the steel helmet made a comeback in the 20th Century as protection for the head from shrapnel.
Goggles are another form of protective headgear. They are not typically needed while wearing a helmet that protects the eyes as well. Hard hats are typically preferred in modern times for construction workers.
See also:Bascinet
Corinthian helmet
Cervelliere
PASGT "Fritz" helmet
Pith helmet (a.k.a. sun helmet)
Sallet
Stahlhelm
Leather helmet - leather
| The above article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/helmet 6/12/05 |
|
A helmet is a form of protective clothing worn on the head, usually made of metal or some other hard substance. Its typical purposes are protection from falling objects and protection from high-speed collisions, two dangers that explain its presence across very different activities. Helmets are common in the military, in construction, in mining and in some sports, including American football and rock climbing. In each setting the risk differs, a falling object underground or on a site, a collision on a field or a rock face, but the answer is the same in principle: a hard covering that takes the force first, before the head does. Modern construction workers typically prefer hard hats, a specialised form of the same idea made for workplace use. Goggles are another form of protective headgear, although they are not typically needed while wearing a helmet that protects the eyes as well, which shows how protective items are combined according to the coverage each one already gives.
For travel on two wheels, the helmet has become a legal matter as well as a safety choice. Motorcycle helmets and bicycle helmets are compulsory headgear in some jurisdictions, meaning the law, not only personal judgement, requires them for riders there. The United Kingdom provides a specific exception: only Sikhs are allowed to ride motorcycles without wearing motorcycle helmets. That single stated exception underlines how general the compulsion otherwise is, and it connects the modern road helmet back to the wider headgear subject, where religious dress such as the turban is itself required wear for its wearers. A helmet law and a religious obligation meet on the same head, and the exception is the recorded way that conflict was resolved for motorcycle riding in that jurisdiction.
Helmets are among the most ancient forms of protection. They are known to have been worn by ancient Greeks and throughout the Middle Ages, when they were primarily military equipment, protecting the head from cutting blows with swords and flying arrows. Their materials developed with the craft available: helmets were initially constructed from leather, but eventually came to be made entirely from iron, with a variety of functional enhancements. Leather could soften or turn a blow, iron could resist one far better, and each enhancement added to an iron helmet addressed a lesson learned in fighting, about coverage, strength or fit. For centuries, then, the helmet's story is one of steady improvement against edged weapons and arrows, the threats its makers faced.
Firearms broke that progress. Military use of helmets declined as firearms became widespread, where traditional helmets offered little protection against the new weapons. A helmet that could not stop a bullet lost its central military purpose, and armies largely set it aside. The return came from a different threat produced by newer warfare. With the increasing use of heavy artillery, the steel helmet made a comeback in the 20th century as protection for the head from shrapnel. Shrapnel, fragments scattered by bursting shells, falls and flies in ways closer to the older dangers of arrows and debris than to a aimed bullet, so a hard steel covering once again had real work to do. That revival explains the long list of named 20th-century and earlier helmet types associated with the subject, from the Adrian, Brodie and Stahlhelm to the M1 and PASGT patterns: once the steel helmet returned, every major army developed its own form of it, and the ancient protective idea resumed the central place it had held from Greek times to the Middle Ages.
Helmets were initially constructed from leather, but eventually came to be made entirely from iron, with a variety of functional enhancements. They are among the most ancient forms of protection, worn by ancient Greeks and throughout the Middle Ages.
Military use of helmets declined as firearms became widespread, since traditional helmets offered little protection against them. With the increasing use of heavy artillery, the steel helmet made a comeback in the 20th century as protection from shrapnel.
Motorcycle helmets and bicycle helmets are compulsory headgear in some jurisdictions. In the United Kingdom, only Sikhs are allowed to ride motorcycles without wearing motorcycle helmets.