Velcro came from a walk with a dog

In 1941, Swiss engineer George de Mestral came back from hunting in the Alps with his trousers and his dog covered in burrs, the spiky seed heads of the burdock plant. Instead of picking them off and forgetting about it, he put them under a microscope and saw hundreds of minuscule hooks grabbing onto any loop of fabric or fur.

That was the idea: two strips, one with hooks, one with loops. It sounded simple, but it took him years to get machines to shape nylon precisely enough. He patented the system in 1955 and called it Velcro, from the French 'velours' (velvet) and 'crochet' (hook).

The decisive push came when NASA used it on the Apollo missions to keep objects from floating away in zero gravity. So much so that half the world believes NASA invented it. It did not: a shaggy dog who wanted a walk did.