10 Everyday Inventions That Exist Thanks To War
5. Duct Tape
In 1943 President Franklin Delano Roosevelt received a letter that would change the world. It was from Vesta Stoudt, a worker in an ammunition factory who had two sons in the military and had heard from them how the tabs of paper tape would tear off their boxes of rifle grenades when they tried to open them, creating a period of annoyed fumbling that in combat conditions was potentially fatal.
She suggested using a stronger, fabric-backed tape to seal the ammo boxes and form the tab. Johnson & Johnson ended up with the idea and the product they made evolved into duct tape.
The military loved it, as attested by its array of nicknames including '100mph tape' for its use on Vietnam-eras helicopter blades. The rest of the world fell in love with it, too, and its usefulness passed beyond common knowledge into the realms of memedom.
In 1972, NASA even used duct tape to repair the fender on a rover vehicle... on the freaking moon.