Margen
In 1943, naval engineer Richard James was testing springs to stabilise delicate instruments aboard warships. One tumbled off a shelf and, instead of lying still, 'walked' down from book to book to the floor, folded itself up and came to rest standing. James went home and told his wife, Betty, that there might be a toy in it.
Betty combed the dictionary for a word that sounded like that motion and picked 'slinky' — sleek and sinuous. In November 1945 they debuted it at Gimbels department store in Philadelphia and sold all 400 units they had in an hour and a half.
Years later, Richard left the company and the country, and it was Betty who ran it for decades and turned the spring into a legend. The toy that walks downstairs exists because somebody bumped into a shelf one day.