A rivet is merely a thin metal rod with one end deformed into a, uh, well, for lack of a better term, into a mushroom tip. The straight end is pushed through the hole drilled into the two pieces ...

If you’re wearing jeans, you’ll probably spot some tiny metal rivets surrounding the front pockets. Like a lot of details in life, we’ve become accustomed to seeing them. So why are they there?

A wife of one worker, Jacob Davies, added studs to areas of, ahem, strain on his trousers to keep them together. And it worked so well the rivets were part of Levi Strauss’s original 501 patent.