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Sunday 15 December 2013

Cap

The Roman charioteers wore skull-protecting caps, which were made of bronze and were identical both in shape and purpose with the modern cloth cap.

Graduates wear a cap and gown because, in the 12th and 13th centuries, universities were founded by religious orders that wore such garb.

Thirteenth-century Scottish Franciscan philosopher John Duns Scotus believed that a pointed cap would help spread knowledge from the tip to the brain, and his “Dunsmen” followers wore them as a badge of honor. In the 1500s, though, his ideas became less popular and the meaning of the Duns cap was turned on its head and came to signify those who refuse to learn and move on.

The distinctive flat-topped caps worn by the fish porters at Billingsgate market in London, are said to be modelled on those worn by the English archers at the Battle of Agincourt.

Queen Elizabeth I sanctioned a law in 1571 obliging everybody over the age of seven except the rich to wear a "cap of wool knit" on Sundays and holidays. This was to help out the ailing wool trade. Non cap wearers were fined 3s 4d for each day of neglect. It was repealed in 1597 as unworkable.

The first baseball caps were made of straw.

In 1888 the Spalding sports goods company was advertising 10 different baseball cap styles ranging from 12 cents for cheap muslin to $2 for the highest quality flannel.

In 1901 the Detroit Tigers became the first baseball club to have a logo on their caps, in their case an orange running tiger.

Sherlock Holmes is famously depicted wearing a deerstalker cap, even though Arthur Conan Doyle's stories never described him wearing one.


The Snapback hat has been around since the mid-1950s when it became the headwear of choice for baseball players; it's called a "snapback" because the back of the hat can be adjusted with different settings of the snaps. In the early 1990s, hip-hoppers like Ice Cube Tupac Shakur and Dr Dre started wearing snapbacks popularizing them through their album covers and music videos and movies. Today, any fashionable rapper wouldn't be seen without one in their wardrobe.

In 1990 when the Chicago White Sox changed their logo and Hip Hop artists started wearing it, New Era cap company had to stop production of all other team caps and just make White Sox caps to meet the demand.

Source The 'Snapback' entry was originally written for Songfacts.com

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