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Night vision contacts would be very important for driving at night in the desert because we were required to turn our headlights off so we wouldn't give our location away to the enemy. As an example, we didn't have any night vision technology which resulted in having to drive very slow and also lead to an accident where two trucks collided. Night vision would have allowed us to get to our destination more quickly and safely."
                                                      --- Captain Jeffrey Newton, United States Army, Operation Desert Storm Persian Gulf War.

The First Sketches		The Glass Contact Lens		The Starlight Scope		The Soft Contact Lens
Leonardo da Vinci began the first known sketches that proposed that the human eye could have better vision by placing water directly in the cornea.		F.A. Muller created the first glass contact lenses out of blown glass. The problem with these was that the glass lenses were heavy and covered the entire surface of the eye. Since they would not allow oxygen to go into the cornea, his lenses could only be tolerated for a few hours at a time.		Night vision was first used by the German Army in World War II. It was first used in rifle scopes and the devices were heavy. They had to be carried with both hands and made carrying other things difficult.		Kevin Tuohy introduced the first contact lenses that act like the gas permeable contact lenses used today. These plastic lenses were smaller in diameter than the contact lenses before it and covered only the cornea.