Most of the armor & weapons speak for themselves regarding their origin. Only Glass & Ebony I'm stumped by. Glass looks suspiciously elven in design, am I right? If so, what's its history? Lastly there's Ebony. Er???? Anyone got a clue?

Glass, the material, is effectivly Obsidian. It is explained as volcanic glass. The equipment is of Dunmer design, so you are right in thinking it is elven.

Ebony, in the world of TES, is a rare and strong metal, mined out of the ground. I don't know about in Skyrim, but in Morrowind, Ebony mining was under heavy control of the empire. So one could say that the weapons and armor are of Imperial design. In Skyrim specifically, the armor has a gotic look to it, which is of European design.

Ebony weapons are of Dunmeri design, going by what the artbook says, Both glass and ebony can be found in abundance in Morrowind. It should also be noted that Ebony is the blood of Lorkhan, being a large reason why it has such a abundance of the stuff in Morrowind.

Oh, so Ebony is Elven as well? I wouldn't have guessed that, especially it being heavy armor. And Glass is volcanic in its origin? Again, very interesting, and both very useful. I'm guessing Glass originates mainly from Red Mountain? So what Dunmer would've worn Glass and Ebony? Did they have specific troops who wore them?

The Buoyant Armigers, a Dunmeri religious military order could sometimes be seen wearing glass.

I don't like the description of glass. It says its difficult to work with because if you strike it along a grain, you could shatter the material. But if you had to melt down a supposedly crystalline material to refine it (Which makes no sense because crystals are already pure) then there should be no grains to break. Melting down a crystal would cause it to loose its crystalline structure and turn more like actual glass.

And ebony is said to be a volcanic glass, yet it is treated in every way, shape, and form as a metal. Sure, you could throw on the "magical world and not real" label, but it still makes no sense.

So, wait, how is ebony treated differently than glass? It must be a lore reason, because in-game I can't think of a real difference in how it is used.

Ebony is treated like a metal. Its mines out of the ground, smelted down into ingots, folded over itself (Pointless for what is supposedly "glass"), and forged with hammer and anvil.

Glass, according to Skyrim, is a crystal which needs to be refined, and added to effectively moonstone armor as decoration with some minor use as shock absorption from blows. They trest Glass as a metal to the point of obtaining an ingot, but with all the negative aspects of its former crystal structure.

Ebony is... weird. It's both volcanic glass and metallic. Metallic glass http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amorphous_metal, though.

What you commonly see as "glass" is silicon glass. "Glass" simply is any noncrystalline mineral-based material that does not have a discrete, easily specified "melting" point, and simply just becomes less viscous as it gets warmer.