1. Velcro:
The story goes: Swiss engineer George de Mestral had gone on a hunting trip with his trusty dog. Out in the wilderness, Mestral kept noticing the troublesome tendency of burrs sticking to his dog’s fur (and his own socks). A scan under a microscope later on revealed what seemed to be these minuscule “hooks” that stuck to fur and fabric. The engineer went on to experiment with this for a range of materials. His invention didn’t become popular until NASA took advantage of Velcro in the early 1960’s for its Apollo mission.
2. Play-Doh:
This icky, but fun toy was first produced to be a cleaning product. The paste was meant to treat dirty wallpaper. On the verge of bankruptcy, the company making this substance realized that although it didn’t work very well as it’s intention, they saw that children were making crafts out of it — such as Christmas ornaments! The company went on the remove the cleanser within the product, replacing it with colour and a nice scent and reverted their product into one of the most iconic toys there would be.
3. Potato Chips:
George Crum, a hotel chef at Moon’s Lake House once received a complaint about his potato fries. The customer criticized that the fries as being too thick, soggy and tasted bland. Furthermore, the guest demanded for a new batch to be made. Crum, wanting to give the customer a piece of his mind, sliced the potatoes as thin as he could and fried the slices until it turned into a fragile crisp. In contrary to the expected reaction, the customer loved the dish as asked for a second serving.
4. Popsicle:
Continuing with the food theme, let’s move onto dessert. It was the early 1900’s and pop was the latest fad. Eleven-year-old Frank wanted to save some money and try recreating the drink on his own. He’s attempts came close, with the use of powder and water, but he carelessly left his mixture of a drink out on the porch. Overnight, the temperatures dropped and the next morning, the drink was found frozen with the stir stick still stuck inside.
5. Sticky note:
A chemist by the name of Spencer Silver one day came across a “low-tack” adhesive that was strong enough to stay on paper, but weak enough that, when removed, wouldn’t rip the paper itself. Silver, unfortunately continuously could not make it a marketable application but one of his colleagues, Art Fry, pointed out that it made a great non-stick, no-slip bookmark.