When the Gutenberg Printing Press was invented in the 1400s, a new age of literacy began. Shortly after, many people noticed they couldn't focus their vision well enough to read the words on the page. Enter the science of glass.
While the science of sight-correcting lenses had been around for about a century, it wasn't until the Renaissance era that glass innovators improved upon the science and made eyeglasses available to the modern world. With this, society was thrust into an age of learning and academic scholarship.