Happy accidents make good inventions. Spills, explosions, odd chemical reactions, and plain old forgetfulness produced some of today’s most practical products. From saccharin to shopping carts, each of the inventions below has a strange and unique origin:
Here are a few examples:
The Bra
New York socialite Mary Phelps Jacob patented the modern bra as the result of an unsuitable corset. When she found her whalebone corset poking out of an evening gown before an event, Phelps used silk handkerchiefs and ribbon to build herself a primitive bra.
When friends and strangers started asking for their own bras, Phelps knew she was onto something. In 1914, she patented her “Backless Brassiere,” then started a business that sold it. She later sold the patent to the Warner Brothers Corset Company for $1,500; that company, in turn, earned $15 million from bras during the next three decades.
Slinky
In 1943, US Navy engineer Richard James was trying to develop a spring for ship instruments when he stumbled across the Slinky. He knocked a spring from a shelf and watched it “step” its way down to a pile of books, then a table, then to the floor. His wife Betty named the toy “slinky,” and a company was born.
In 1960, Richard, fed up with success, left the family to join a religious group in Bolivia. Betty continued to run the company until 1998.
Velcro
After a 1941 hunting trip, Swiss engineer George de Mestral and his dog were both covered in burdock burrs. De Mestral examined some of the burrs under a microscope. He found that their hook-shaped spikes would latch onto loops in fur, hair, or clothing, making them incredibly sticky. He realized that materials could be bound together in the same way, if the hooks and loops were constructed properly.
After years of experimentation, de Mestral found a way to make hooks and loops from nylon, then mechanize the process of weaving the hooks. Ten years after making his discovery, he submitted his hook/loop combo for a Swiss patent, which was granted in 1955. Worldwide patents and manufacturing plants followed, although it took more than a decade for Velcro to gain widespread acceptance.
