10 Shoe-Facts to Knock Your Socks Off

Shoes have been around almost since the beginning of mankind, and it’s impossible to imagine life without them. We wear shoes daily, but interestingly, know very little of them. It’s time to change that and become a shoe-trivia expert, with these fascinating facts:

1. The earliest known shoes are sandals dating from approximately 8,000 BC, found in Oregon, USA
2. Men wore high heels first! The high heel traces to horse-riding Mongolians, who used high heels functionally, to hold the foot in stirrups
3. Greek Spartans, famed for being great warriors, displayed toughness by never wearing shoes
4.  First fashion boots were manufactured for none other than Queen Victoria herself, in 1840
5. Only in the 19^th century, a distinction was made between left-footed and right-footed shoes
6. The open-toed shoe became popular in the 1930’s, as a result of the sunbathing trend
7. Most expensive shoes were the ruby slippers worn by Judy Garland in The Wizard of Oz, auctioned for $666,000
8. The Bata Shoes Museum in Canada is home to world’s biggest collection of shoes, spanning over 4,500 years
9. The many shoes of Sex and the City’s Carrie Bradshaw are estimated at 40,000$
10. Former Philippine First Lady Imelda Marcos owned over 1,200 pairs of shoes