Why is the history of microscope interesting?

It was the Romans who first invented glass, and discovered that if a piece of a certain type of glass that was thick in the middle and thin on the edges was held over an object look larger. This was the first primitive 'lens'.

the early lenses were called magnifiers or burning glasses. In the 13th century, spectacle makers started producing lenses to be worn as glasses. Sometime about the year 1590, two dutch spectacle makers, Zacharias Jansen and his father Hans invented the compound microscope that uses two or more lenses.

Galileo, the great Italian scientist, improved the microscope by adding a focusing device to it. Antonie Van Leeuwenhoek of Holland found that by  grinding and polishing, he was able to make small lenses with great curvatures. These rounder lenses produced greater magnification. his new improved microscope was able to see things that no man had ever seen before, and he is often called the father of Microscopy'. Robert Hooke, an Englishman, also improved microscopes.