The history of the contact lens starts much earlier then most people would think. The first person to start working on ideas and the principles behind the Contact Lens was a man by the name of Leonardo da Vinci. Vinci made sketches of early forms of contact lens near the year 1510. He made sketches of several types, described the basic principal behind contact lens, and how much easier then would make ones life.
The next big improvement on Contact Lens wasn't for almost two centuries, when in 1802 a man by the name Thomas Young, developed a product to correct his own eye vision. Thomas Young came up with a quarter inch long tube, that was made out of glass and was filled up with water. The outer end of the tube had a microscopic lens on it, and he used this device to correct his own vision.
In 1827, contact lens took another huge step of improvement, when people began wondering if these devices would ever be able to rest directly on the eye itself. A astronomer for England with the name Sir John Herschel came up with an idea of grinding a contact lens, so that it can conform exactly to the eyes surface. It took a long time, but this single idea is what transformed ancient contact lens into the contact lens we know of today
In 1887, a glassblower, which is someone who uses glass, a pipe to blow into the glass, and a hot oven to melt and shape the glass, produced the first contact lens that was designed to rest directly on the eye, tolerable and be seen through for vision improvements. This glass blower from germany went by the name Muller. Mullers design is almost identical to the contact lens designer of today, he played a heavy part in their history with this one idea.
By 1888, physicians and opticians are using these newly formed contact lens, and are claiming they can cure many optical defects. The next big improvement was in 1929, when a man came up with the idea to make a mold of ones eye that would be wearing the contact lens.

This way the lens is more then just in the natural shape of an average humans eye, but it made to perfectly conform much more closely to ones sclera.
In 1936 a Optometrist made the first American pair of contact lens, and introduced the use of plastics into the manufacturing of contact lens. In 1945 the use of contact lens became so common that the AOA ( American Optometric Association ) declared that contact lens were not an integral part of the practice of optometrics.
In the 1960's, the first soft contact lens was being developed. A soft contact lens is a contact lens that is made completely of a soft plastic that is water absorbing. These did not became readily available until the early 1970's. Contact lens are now being innovative, with new designs such as the tinted contact lens, and special effect novelty contact lens are also in the making.
Like bifocal eyeglasses, bifocal contact lenses both have two powers on one lens: one to correct distance vision (hypermetropia) and the other to correct near vision (myopia), helping you see clearly at both distances.
Multifocal contact lenses have a range of powers letting you see near, far and all distances in between. These lenses are also known as progressive contact lenses.
Aspheric multifocal contact lens (also known as progressive contact lens) designs work more like progressive eyeglass lenses, that is different prescriptive powers are located across the lens letting you see clearly at all distances. These lenses do require a period of adjustment, the eyes eventually learn to ignore near objects when focusing on far objects and vice versa.
Concentric contact lenses (also known as annular contact lens) have an arrangement of prescriptions in a bulls eye pattern in which they are alternate in strength from near to far. Depending on your eye care needs the centre of the lens can either be designed for near vision or far vision.