A flask that refused to shatter led to safer car windshields
In 1903, French chemist Édouard Bénédictus knocked a glass flask off a shelf and found it had cracked without scattering — residue from a dried-out celluloid solution had coated the inside. He later connected this to newspaper reports of people badly cut by shattering glass in car accidents, and patented laminated glass: a plastic layer sandwiched between two glass sheets that holds together on impact.