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13 Accidental Inventions That Changed The World

Drake BaerMay 27, 2014, 23:30 IST

Flickr user Marco Milani

Necessity isn't always the mother of invention.

Lots of the things we rely on to cure our diseases, cook our meals, and sweeten our days weren't deliberately designed. Instead, they were a happy accident.

Read on to see how society-shaping inventions - from Coca-Cola to penicillin and the microwave oven - came about by chance.

Alyson Kreuger contributed additional research to this article.