In the first weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic spreading through Europe and North America, scientists and designers started working to make hospitals safer for the influx of patients and at-risk staff. The first protective innovations included a hands-free door handle you can open with your forearm and a snood-type mask said to kill 95% of viruses. As the old English proverb says, “necessity is the mother of invention,” and times of crisis have led to some of history’s most important inventions. Getty Images 
World War I was an incubator for new innovations. Tea bags were accidentally invented pre-war, in 1908, when tea and coffee importer Thomas Sullivan sent customers silk bags of tea as a marketing gimmick. Befuddled customers thought they were supposed to steep the tea in the silk bag, an idea they loved but couldn’t bring to fruition due to the thick fabric. A decade later during the war, German tea purveyor Teakanne adapted the concept using cotton and the modern tea bag was born. The “tea bombs,” intended for easy transfer to soldiers on the front line, were a masterpiece in efficiency and their popularity continued beyond the war. Getty Images 
“Melts in your mouth, not in your hand.” M&M’s legendary tagline actually comes from the candy’s origin. During the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s, Forrest Mars, Sr. (of the Mars Company) saw British soldiers eating pellets of chocolate coated in a hard candy shell. The shell kept the chocolate from melting in the soldiers’ hands. Mars patented the product and started producing M&M’s, exclusively selling to the military in World War II. Originally sold in milk chocolate, the candies now come in an almost unnecessary variety of flavors like peanut, pretzel, caramel, cheesecake and orange vanilla cream. Getty Images 
Lab technician Richard Drew spent the 1920s trying to invent masking tape. He finally received a patent for a successful formula in 1930, right as cellophane was introduced. In an act of synergy, Drew combined the products and created what we now know as Scotch tape. What does this have to do with a crisis? Scotch tape was released as the United States fell into the Great Depression—that is, right as everyone found themselves unable to replace broken or torn goods. Instead, they mended everything with Scotch tape, and billions of dollars later, the tape is a common household staple. Getty Images 
Pilates, a favorite workout system for core strengthening, flexibility, and balance, gets its name from the man who invented it: physical trainer Joseph Pilates, who conceived the idea while a prisoner of war in an internment camp during WWI. He honed his method of “contrology” on fellow inmates, aiding in the rehab of injured veterans. After the war, Joseph Pilates immigrated to the US and collaborated with dance and exercise experts to nail down the system we know simply as “Pilates.” Getty Images 
A little black dress, a crisp white button up and a trench coat are timeless garments that every fashionista has in her closet. But did you know that the stylish trench coat is actually a wartime design? Thomas Burberry (of, you know, Burberry) submitted a design in 1901 for an Army officer’s raincoat, but it wasn’t until WWI that the coat was modified into the eternally chic design worn today with shoulder straps, large pockets and D-rings around the belt. The waterproof coats were sent to soldiers to wear down in the trenches. Getty Images 
During the Napoleonic Wars in the beginning of the 1800s, the French government was searching for a method to supply food to their army. A confectioner and brewer named Nicolas Alpert noticed that food cooked and sealed inside a glass jar didn’t spoil (although he couldn’t tell you why). He brought his method to the French government and received a reward of 12,000 francs. Getty Images 
The “Our History” page on Kleenex’s website is way more compelling than it has any right to be, and it all started during WWI. Manufacturer Kimberly-Clark developed a crepe paper for use as a gas mask filter. After the war, they adapted that paper into Kotex sanitary napkins. In 1924, the napkins were made thinner and softer. They were sold as tissues for removing cold cream until 1929 when Kimberly-Clark’s head researcher started using them in place of a handkerchief during allergy season. Getty Images 
Duct tape was invented by a mother looking out for her boys. In 1943, while packing and inspecting boxes of ammunition, Vesta Stoudt took issue with the paper tape that sealed the boxes. The tape pull-tabs often tore, leaving soldiers like her sons unable to open packages of ammo under fire. The idea for a cloth-backed, waterproof tape came to her immediately. Stoudt drafted a letter to President Roosevelt, who loved the idea and forwarded it to the War Production Board. Now duct tape is used for absolutely anything, from home repair and shoe repair to weaving prom dresses and constructing hammocks. Getty Images 
During WWII, scientist Dr. Harry Coover was developing a clear plastic to use for gun sights. One of many failed attempts created an astonishingly sticky adhesive, which Coover quickly forgot about for almost a decade. In 1951 he and colleague Fred Joyner were working together when Joyner came across the accidentally invented adhesive and started testing it. Coover finally realized the utility of the substance, and the men created Super Glue. The glue was used as a medical adhesive during the Vietnam War, quickly and effectively sealing open wounds. Getty Images 
In 1975 Steven Sasson, an engineer working for Kodak, pieced together a digital camera using leftover parts from his lab. You might be surprised to hear that digital photography was invented back in 1975, but scientists had actually already been working toward it for a couple decades. The reason? The Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union had created a driving demand for digital information to use in space exploration and spy satellites. Who would have thought an era of political tension would lead us to one of the world’s greatest inventions: the selfie. Getty Images 
Ruth Graves Wakefield, chef and owner of the Toll House Inn in Whitman, Massachusetts, invented chocolate chip cookies in 1938. They were intended only as a local treat, but Massachusetts families sent the cookies in care packages to their soldiers overseas. The cookies were shared amongst the troops, who wrote home begging for more. Wakefield’s local treat was suddenly a global phenomenon. She eventually gave the recipe to Nestle, who compensated her with the only thing better than money: a lifetime supply of free chocolate. Getty Images 
Love it (in the fall, when we gain an hour of sleep) or hate it (in the spring, when we lose an hour of sleep), Daylight Savings Time is a reality for over 70 countries across the world. Different iterations were tossed back and forth at the beginning of the 20th century, including one proposal of twenty minute time changes every Sunday in April and September, which would have ensured that nobody would ever know what time it was again. The idea finally caught on during WWI when Germany and Austria set their clocks forward one hour in April of 1916 as an effort to conserve fuel for the war. Getty Images 
We use radar for everything today: tracking weather, helping us parallel park, and earning speeding tickets. But the invention of radar had a more important use. In the 1930s, Scottish physicist Robert Watson-Watt was developing a radio wave apparatus to help the Royal Air Force locate approaching thunderstorms. He realized the technology could be used to locate something more dangerous: enemy bombers. By the time the war broke out, the British had lined the English Channel and their coasts with radar technology that alerted them of approaching unknown aircrafts, giving the British a serious advantage in the war. Getty Images 
Have you ever heard stories of people getting sick climbing Mount Everest? That’s because of the change in air pressure at high altitudes. Before the 1940s, aircraft passengers experienced a long list of health issues in the sky, including altitude sickness and hypoxia. WWII pilots suffered from these ailments until Boeing finally devised the first plane with a pressurized cockpit. Without this invention, comfortable commercial air travel wouldn’t exist. Now, if Boeing could work on inventing some extra leg room Getty Images 
In 1928, lab technician Alexander Fleming returned from vacation to find mold growing on a staphylococcus culture plate he’d left out. He noticed that the mold hindered the growth of the bacteria and began experimenting. He published an article about his discovery, which led to… nothing. The article went largely ignored, so Fleming shrugged the whole thing off. But researchers at Oxford University continued his research and developed penicillin as a medicine. In WWII the antibiotic was mass produced to save the lives of thousands of soldiers suffering from infections from wounds, amputations, and even venereal diseases, changing the world of medicine. Getty Images 
Ballpoint pens were invented by Hungarian journalist Laszlo Biro, who sought a writing instrument with quick drying ink, rather than leaky fountain pens. He constructed a pen with a tiny metal ball at the tip that controlled the release of the ink and kept it from drying up inside. But there was one benefit he didn’t anticipate: his ballpoint pens could function at high altitude, unlike fountain pens which would flood. The Royal Air Force began implementing use of ballpoint pens during WWII, leading to unexpected popularity and cementing their place in the writing world. Getty Images 
WWII was a battlefield of encryption. The Germans were particularly skilled at sending quick changing codes that codebreakers in England’s Bletchley Park worked tirelessly to crack. Luckily, mathematicians Max Newman and Tommy Flowers stepped in to construct a machine of vacuum tubes that could determine the settings of the German cypher machines. Known as the Colossus, this first computer was nothing like the sleek MacBooks we work on now—it weighed five tons and took up an entire room. Getty Images 
Light bulbs have a long and winding history, going back to the days of Edison vs. Tesla, but the first residential fluorescent light bulbs weren’t available until the 1970s. The 1973 oil crisis had left the U.S. in a recession. General Electric created the bulb, but didn’t release it. It wasn’t until other companies caught wind of the design that GE realized its potential for conserving energy, making it a mainstay in an energy-conscious world. Getty Images 
The idea for the zipper goes back to 1851 when inventor Elias Howe patented a sliding fastener—but the zipper may never have gained traction if it weren’t for WWI. In 1917, New York City tailor Robert J. Ewig first put “hookless fasteners” on money belts. Zippered money belts were perfect for people without pockets, like U.S. sailors who wore pocketless uniforms. That year, 34,000 hookless fasteners were used on money belts and flying suits for the Navy. The fasteners grew in popularity, and in 1923 B.F. Goodrich used them on a new model of rubber boot called “zippers.” Getty Images 
New Yorker Scott Heiferman was in his apartment on September 11, 2001, when two planes crashed into the World Trade Center. In the aftermath, he found himself surrounded by neighbors he’d never even met. In the days and weeks following the tragedy, Heiferman observed the desire for community and that led to the creation of social networking site Meetup, where users can meet like-minded individuals in their area and make plans for face to face meetups. Heiferman’s observations proved to be accurate—Meetup now has over 25 million members. Getty Images
