Did you ever wonder who invented the first potato chip? The story goes that they were invented in 1853 at a hotel in Saratoga Springs, New York. One day a customer kept sending his fried potatoes back to the kitchen complaining that they were not crispy. The chef, George Crum, became tired of the complaints and decided to slice the potatoes paper thin and fry them until they curled. He salted them, and sent them back to the unhappy guest. He was certain that the guest would hate them and was so surprised when he instead asked for MORE! At first they were known as Saratoga Chips, and they are now America's number one snack food: Potato Chips!
In case you were wondering who to thank for delicious chocolate chip cookies, Ruth Wakefield invented them in 1930. She was mixing the batter for cookies at the Toll House Inn and realized that she had run out of baker's chocolate, so she decided to break a semi-sweetened chocolate bar in small pieces. She expected that these bits would melt and she would have chocolate cookies. Imagine her surprise when she took her cookies out of the oven and realized that they were not chocolate cookies. She had made chocolate chip cookies. They were named Toll House cookies after Ruth Wakefield's inn!
"A spring, a spring, a marvelous thing! Everyone knows it's Slinky!" Though its popularity can't be called into question, "everyone" may not know that the Slinky was an accident. Created by mechanical engineer Richard James in 1943, it was the unintended by-product of a new line of sensitive springs that would help keep fragile equipment steady on ships. After knocking one of his newly created springs from a shelf, James watched as it "walked" down from its spot instead of falling to the ground. With a machine designed to coil 80 ft. of wire into a 2-in. spiral and a name chosen by his wife Betty, James began producing his novelty Slinky — but at first to little notice. Slinky got its big break during the Christmas shopping season of 1945, when the Gimbels department store in Philadelphia let James demonstrate his new creation. Within minutes, he sold 400 Slinkys. Sixty-six years and 250 million Slinkys later, we're still just as delighted with James' serendipitous toy as we ever were.
http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2049243_2048651_2049036,00.html
http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2049243_2048651_2049036,00.html
Can you think of any inventions that were created by accident?