Try typing <underwear men history> into your browser. A couple of years ago i picked up some history info, but now can't find the site again, of which the following is a short extract:
The loincloth is clearly the universal antecedent of men’s underwear.
In 1352 BC Egypt, the young Pharaoh Tutankhamun was buried with 145 loincloths. Surely that was an ample supply for the afterlife. They were each a long piece of linen shaped like an isosceles triangle with strings meant to be tied around the hips. The length of cloth hanging down in back was brought forward between the legs and tucked over the tied strings in the front, from the outside in. Whenever masculine Egyptian loincloth-clad royalty covered themselves with robe or skirt, then we had an example of underwear.
The loincloth was still being worn as underwear by the shepherds in southwestern France as late as 1835.
Over 3,000 years later, Japanese pilots during World War II were still wearing a similar "loincloth" under their uniforms. Traditional Chinese male underwear has always been a cut-and-sewn version of the loincloth, a diaper-like brief tied in front with two cross-panels.
Like many of today's products and technologies, men’s underwear was significantly improved during both World Wars. The first shorts with buttons on a yoke were introduced to WW I soldiers. Then adjustable, tie-side shorts were issued for summer wear by the troops in WW II. Both were so popular that returning soldiers insisted on continuing to wear them, often forgoing their more familiar union suits. And the war years began the introduction of new fabrics like rayon to compete with or complement cotton.
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