I never did anything by accident, nor did any of my inventions come by accident; they came by work.

–Thomas Edison

German First World War period military binoculars by K B Dienst F608 Fernglas.

Hans Lippershey built the first binoculars in December 1608 for the Assembly of the States General of the Netherlands. He was a spectacle maker from Middleburg in Zeeland and had discovered that a convex lens and a concave lens could be combined to produce a magnified image of a distant object –a simple telescope. Lippershey offered his telescope to the States General on 2nd October 1608, and they requested a version to be used by both eyes, for military purposes.

Basically, binocluars are two telescopes mounted side-by-side. The same principles that apply to telescope also apply to binoculars. However, binoculars have a clear advantage over monoculars. With a monoculars, it is usually necessary to close one eye in order to view your target without visual confusion. Using just one eye makes visual perception hard and does not present a three dimensional image like binoculars.

Since then, great advancements have been made in making binoculars handier. Nowadays, the market has a wide range of sophisticated binoculars including night vision binoculars that are used mainly by soldiers in war times and peace keeping missions.