Super Glue was invented by accident — Eastman Kodak was trying to make gun sights

In 1942, during World War II, a team led by Harry Coover Jr. at B.F. Goodrich was trying to develop clear plastic gun sights for Allied soldiers. They synthesized a compound called cyanoacrylate — and discovered it stuck aggressively to everything it touched, ruining the expensive optical equipment they were working with. The project was abandoned as a failure.

Coover moved to Eastman Kodak after the war. In 1951, he and colleague Fred Joyner rediscovered cyanoacrylate while working on a different project. This time, Coover recognized that the 'failed' adhesive was actually a valuable product. Eastman Kodak filed a patent in 1954 and launched it commercially in 1958 as 'Eastman #910.'

The adhesive was initially slow to catch on — it was expensive and required careful application. But its incredible bonding strength made it indispensable in manufacturing, medicine (it was used to seal wounds in the Vietnam War), and households. Loctite licensed and later competed with the product. By the 1970s, cyanoacrylate adhesives were a multi-million-dollar market.