8. One tiny piece of wood, one giant spark
Fire has been around for eons, but what about the tiny matchstick? In 1826, John Walker was stirring a pot of chemicals when he noticed a dried lump had formed on the end of the mixing stick. Without thinking, he tried to scrape off the dried gob and, all of a sudden, it ignited. He sold the first strike-able matches at a local bookstore. The ‘friction lights’ came neatly in a box with a piece of sandpaper. Today’s matches are made with non-poisonous red phosphorus, discovered by Johan Edvard Lundstrom. The previous versions had been slightly more dangerous and were prone to igniting when coming into contact with pretty much anything.
Today the safety match is the most widely used match in the world.