1. Penicillin
Alexander Fleming’s sloppy lab work resulted in one of the most important inventions made my mistake, leaving the world with one of the most widely used antibiotics of all time. After leaving a lab dish of bacteria uncovered, he found a small section where no bacteria grew, that had a blob of mold surrounded by a clear substance. That clear juice was the first version of penicillin. Thousands of strep throat and ear infections later, it’s still a widely used antibiotic.
Read Related: 5 New Food Inventions That are Even Crazier than the Cronut
