The 17th Century discovery that quinine extracted from the bark of South American cinchona trees could be used to treat and prevent malaria – building on a much earlier indigenous Quechua discovery that the extract stops shivering.
Fleming’s discovery of penicillin.1
de Mestral’s invention of Velcro following the model presented by cockle-burs that stuck to his jacket while out walking \cite[pp 220-222]{roberts}.
Arthur Fry’s invention of sticky bookmarks (the prototype for Post-it notes), using a weak glue developed by his colleague, Spencer Silver \cite[p. 224]{roberts}.
Penzias and Wilson’s discovery of the echoes of the Big Bang \cite{singh2004big}.
Kekulé’s dream-inspired discovery of the structure of the benzine ring \cite[p. 21]{benfey}, cf. \cite[p. 77]{roberts}.
Charles Goodyear’s invention of vulcanised rubber \cite{goodyear1855gum}.
The Rosetta Stone was found by a soldier who was demolishing a wall in order to clear ground for what was to be Fort St. Julien \cite[pp. 109 - 111]{roberts}.
Merton and Barber state that the description of this discovery was the first time that the word serendipity was used without inverted commas or accompanying definition.↩