May useful household items have resulted from simple mistakes. The Post-it notes is a great example. The adhesive was accidentally developed in 1968 by Spencer Silver. In 1974, a fellow employer and a singer in a church choir, Arthur Fry, was trying to find a way to keep bookmarks in place in hymnals.  He decided to try putting Silver’s adhesive on the backs of the bookmarks. Though his idea for the Post-it note did not seem profitable at first, the product was introduced in 1980 and became very popular around the world.

Even more widespread than the Post-it note is the microwave oven, which is a common kitchen appliance in many households. In 1945, while researching for the Raytheon Corporation, Percy Spencer was experimenting with a type of vacuum tube. He was surprised when the candy bar in his pocket started melting. He became curious and tried experimenting with popcorn. The popcorn popped. Ratheon built the world’s first microwave oven in 1947. It was hundreds of pounds and stood about as tall as a human being. It’s huge size and its price of $5,000 dollars kept it from being popular among the general public. Only when the design was modified in 1967 did the appliance increase in popularity.

Another product used in many homes is the artificial sweetener, saccharin, which resulted from an accident in 1879. Constantine Fahlberg, a researcher at Johns Hopkins University, forgot to wash his hands one day after spilling chemicals on them. He proceeded to eat lunch and noticed that his bread was sweeter than normal. He managed to patent it saccharin as an artificial sweetener in 1884, but it did not become widely popular until World War I, during the time when sugar was being rationed. It became even more well known after the mid-1900s, with the production of Sweet’N Low and sugarless soft drinks.

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