16 Things You Didn't Know Were Invented By Total Accident

5. Crisps

Crisps were invented in New York when a customer in a restaurant kept sending back his fried potato stating they were not crispy enough. The chef became tired and eventually cut the potato incredibly thin before frying them and covering them in salt. Rather ironically for the chef, the customer loved them, leading to them eventually spreading across America and thus the world.

4. Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ruth Graves was about to start baking some chocolate cookies when she noticed that she had no baker's melting chocolate. She improvised and - instead - chopped up a normal bar of chocolate into tiny pieces and mixed them in with the dough. Ruth was shocked to see the chocolate retained its shape after baking... but her guests loved them and the new recipe spread across America like wildfire.

3. Fireworks

An ancient Chinese cook took some everyday kitchen materials and mixed them together, in much the same way you do when you're hungover and can't be bothered to cook something properly. When he exposed it a flame - no reason why he did that, of course - it burned quickly. So he did the only sensible thing and compressed it in a bamboo tube to see if it would explode. It did and fireworks were born, allowing New Year's Eve to be celebrated far more noisily than is probably warranted.