Thanks to action movies everybody knows what it is and how bulletproof vest looks. But not everyone knows, that it has be developed by two Poles: Jan Szczepanik and Kazimierz Zeglen. Their invention gained popularity in 1902, when it saved from death king of Spain Alfonso XIII during the attempt on his life.

Vest invented by Polish inventors based on energy absorption by the layers of fabric. The individual layers were made from... silk, because it was the strongest fabric known at that time. The vest had limited resistance to shoots. Most of current bullets would probably just overshot such vest.

Interestingly, one of the inventors - Kazimierz Zeglen, was a monk from the Rresurectors Congregation (pol zgromadzenie zmartwychstańcow) living in United States. He started to thin about bulletproof vest after the death of the mayor of Chicago, who was shot in his own office.

Jan Szczepanik was the world-famous inventor. So gifted, that Mark Twain fascinated by him, called him a "Polish Edison".

Zeglen ordered the Szczepanik's company to develop production technology for bulletproof material. "Polish Edison" has fullfiled the task, but soon later he quarreled with Zeglen and they end their cooperation.