A nail is a small metal fastener, typically with a sharp point and a flattened head, used in woodworking and construction to join materials together or as a peg from which to hang objects. Nails were used extensively across the ancient world; Roman legions are known to have used them in vast quantities, illustrated by the roughly seven tons of iron nails left buried when the Roman fortress of Inchtuthil in Scotland was abandoned around AD 86 to 87, and for most of history, from prehistory into the 19th century, nails were made individually by hand forging before mechanized manufacturing took over production.
Facts
Patent or First-Use DateSourced to the subject's own accountCovers the patented cut-nail mass-production process (Jacob Perkins, U.S., 1795), not the ancient hand-forged nail; no single date for the fastener's own ancient origin was found in the cited article, so no value is recorded for the year key. SignificanceSourced to the subject's own accountThe nail moved from a hand-forged fastener known since antiquity to a mass-produced item once the cut-nail process was patented in 1795, and by the early twentieth century machine-made wire nails had displaced cut nails in American production entirely. 1 Sources
1. Nail (fastener) (Wikipedia)
WikipediaCut sectionQuote, Cut section
The cut-nail process was patented in the U.S. by Jacob Perkins in 1795 and in England by Joseph Dyer, who set up machinery in Birmingham.
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