Sunrise on Dowling Street

There are two things I discovered after taking this photo. Firstly, the lady who walked past me moments before I captured this scene seemed to be having an extremely good morning, judging by the high pitched enthusiasm with which she was talking on the phone. Secondly, it was on this day in 1790 that Brit Harvey Kennedy made our lives a little easier. He patented the modern shoelace with an aglet. Thus, no longer would the fibers from shoelaces unravel. They became easier to hold and could be fed through eyelets relatively trouble-free.

From there, things got really crazy. The invention of different fibres and fabrics meant the colour of shoelaces changed. The aglet became plastic, zips and Velcro replaced the shoelace altogether, and finally, highly embellished buckles came back into fashion-where the whole thing started in the first place.