What might seem like a roadblock or an inconvenience might prove itself to be a much needed stroke of good luck.
Take for example, those who saw an early performance of the Broadway musical The Pajama Game, who arrived to discover the show's acclaimed dancer, Carol Haney, was out with a broken foot.
Well, however disappointed those in the audience may have been at the time, everyone present could later brag that they got to see Shirley Maclaine go on for the role.
Maclaine had some good luck herself that night, as a Hollywood talent scout happened to be in the audience.
Similarly, there have been several inventors and entrepreneurs over time who have worked hard at creating a life-changing invention, only to make a detrimental mistake.
Detrimental to the project they were working on, at least, as some of these mistakes resulted in legendary inventions.
Redditor figinjosejospe was curious to hear about the most prolific inventions which were all the source of an accident, leading them to ask:
"What was invented by accident?"
Romy And Michelle Were On To Something...
"Post-its."
"They were looking for a strong glue and produced a weak one, but the secretaries of the inventors pointed out that that it was ideal for making removable notes."- amerkanische_Frosch
Miracle Cure?
"Penicillin?"
"But it wasn’t invented just discovered by accident."- Tigydavid135
Cheesy Goodness!
"Velveeta cheese was a byproduct that was considered waste."
"Someone noticed that factory workers were dipping bread into that vat of byproduct during lunchtime."
"From there, Velveeta was born."
"Also, margarine was originally developed as supplemental chicken feed, but various recipes kept killing chickens."
"So, it was repurposed for human consumption."- Drlmichele88
"Probably cheese."
"My dads go-to small talk line for like 5 years in the 90s was, 'I wonder who the first person to eat cheese was'."
"'Must have been pretty hungry'.”- RabbiVolesBassSolo
nacho cheese GIFGiphyMaking The Best Of A Sticky Situation
"Superglue was invented during WW2 by accident."
"The inventor was trying to make clear gun scopes."- BootProfessional8335
Some Things Just Don't Need Fixing...
"I love how the video game character 'Kirby' was created and how he became his own series."
"Originally, Kirby was created to be sort of a 'test dummy' that would get a more detailed design later on, but the designers ended up falling in love with him as is and kept him as he was."
"The franchise reached its 30th anniversary this year and it’s one of Nintendo’s strongest properties to this day."- KipsyCakes
...But What It's Purpose?...
'Silly putty."
'It was a failed attempt at making synthetic rubber I believe or maybe glue I don't remember which."- SwimmerSea3163
GiphyWhere Would Transportation Be Today?
"Vulcanized rubber."
"Charles Goodyear came up with it by accident."
"Without it we don't have tires, gaskets, seals, soles of shoes, hoses, shock absorbers and hell of a lot more."
"Pretty much changed the whole world."- TriplePube
POW!
"Believe it or not, gun powder."
"Some Chinese scientists were trying to create fire bombs and made this powder type substance that just exploded in their face instead."- Reddit
Action!
"Special effects."
"For a while, it was assumed you had to keep the camera rolling thru a whole scene, also easier to splice the movie together."
"A director, forgot his name, was filming a bus when his camera jammed, by the time he fixed it, the bus had left and there was a bench right behind it."
"When they looked at the film during editing, it looked like the bus had magically turned into a bench."- stealthkoopa
fake martin scorsese GIFGiphyNext time you use baking powder instead of baking soda when baking a cake, don't be too dismayed by the flat cake you see before you.
However unsuccessful it may have been as a cake, it might have been the perfect formula for brownies.
Resulting in one happy, and delicious, accident.