In the early 1900s, French scientist Édouard Bénédictus knocked over a glass flask—and it didn’t shatter. Curious, he found it had once held cellulose nitrate, which left a thin film inside that held the glass together.

Inspired, he created laminated safety glass: two layers of glass with a plastic layer in between. Patented in 1909, it soon caught the eye of carmakers looking for safer windshields. By the 1920s, safety glass was saving lives—and later showed up in buildings, buses, and protective goggles.