Heres an excellent brief history of nail making from Glasgow, hits it right on the......

http://www.glasgowsteelnail.com/nailmaking.htm

From that site is this, very interesting, as an ironworker who prefers precision screws to nails (yeah, I keep bashing my fingers instead !) its nice to know why the modern ones are called wire nails. Odd how such a basic thing you might take for granted is, of course, so significant.

http://www.uvm.edu/~histpres/203/nails.html