The Accidental Inventions That We’re All Grateful For

As the saying goes, necessity is the mother of invention. And wartime has a way of creating a lot of necessities. For instance, during World War Two, America’s rubber supply was interrupted, making it hard to create the tires needed for vehicles. James Wright of the General Electric Company was tasked with coming up with a synthetic alternative.

One of the alternatives that he came up with, though, was easily moldable and bounced on the floor. It was totally unsuitable for making tires, but eventually, it came to be sold worldwide as the toy that we now know as Silly Putty.