The Accidental discoveries

Potato Chips - Discovered: Saratoga Springs, New York

Chef George Crum made the interesting discovery of potato chips after a customer complained to him about his potato fries being cut way too thick. Being a wise guy he sliced a potato paper thin and then fried it to a crisp. The diner loved it, thus creating the world's very first potato chip.

Viagra - Discovered: Merthyr Tydfil, Wales

Viagra was discovered by men who were being treated with an erectile dysfunction. It was first discovered in the town of Merthyr Tydfil with the trial medicines they thought could cure the dysfunction. It has since become well known as Viagra, and is used as a male enhancement.

Silly Putty - Discovered: New York

Silly Putty was discovered in the 1940s by a general electric scientist named James Wright while he was trying to create a synthetic rubber to use for the war. He mixed boric acid and silicon oil and got Silly Putty. Since then it has become one of the world's most popular toys. One favorite past time includes sticking it on a newspaper and pulling it off to reveal the imprint of the comic.

LSD - Discovered: Switzerland

LSD was discovered by a Swiss chemist named Albert Hoffman. It was the world's first acid hit. The year was 1943, and he had been working with a chemical called lysergic acid diethylamide. The initial reason for his research was related to childbirth. After the first try he attempted even a larger dose of it and made another discovery, the bad trip.

Microwave Ovens - Discovered: Massachusetts

Microwave Ovens were discovered in 1946 when a magnetron melted a candy bar in Raytheon engineer Percy Spencer's pocket. Microwave emitters powered the Allies radar in WWII.

Penicillin - Discovered: Scotland

A Scottish scientist named Alexander Fleming was looking into a cure for the flu in 1928 when he noticed that a blue-green mold had infected one of his Petri dishes, and it had killed the staphylococcus bacteria that had been growing in it. The world's most effective cure was actually discovered due to a contamination in the lab. What a unique coincidence!

X-Rays - Discovered: Germany

X-rays were discovered in the 19th century by several scientists toying with penetrating rays that were emitted when electrons struck a metal target. It wasn't fully workable until 1895 when a German scientist named Wilhelm Röntgen tried sticking different objects in front of the radiation and saw the bones on his hand projected onto the wall behind him.

Artificial Sweeteners - Discovered: Illinois; Maryland; Nebraska


Artificial sweeteners were discovered in much the same way as penicillin. Three of them, Saccharin, Cyclamate, and Aspartame were all discovered in a one hundred year time period, and all by scientists who forgot to wash their hands after an experiment.

Brandy - Discovered: The Seven Seas


Brandy was created by wine merchants during the medieval time period by boiling the water out of wine so that their cargo would stay fresh and take up less space when being shipped. After a while it was decided to skip the reconstitution stage altogether and brandy was accidentally created .

Vulcanized Rubber - Discovered: New York

When rubber rots, it smells horrible unless it is vulcanized. The ancient Mesoamericans actually had their own variation of the process Charles Goodyear discovered in 1839. He accidentally dropped some rubber-sulfur compound onto a hot stove, creating the first vulcanized rubber.

This article, discovered on Digg

Trifter