i'm mainly considering stuff that would probably have larger effects on the world. honestly, i can't imagine how much the lack of ice cream cones would affect the world from then on, whereas penicillin, for instance, has its wide-ranging medicinal properties.What about ice cream cones (a stall at the 1904 World Fair happened to run out of plates, and decided to improvise by rolling up waffles into cones) and popsicles (in 1905, 11 year old Frank Epperson absentmindedly left his mixture of self-made soda pop out on the porch, where it froze overnight, with the stirring stick still in it)? Other interesting candidates- the synthetic dye Mauve (created in 1856 by 18 year old chemist William Perkin, as a byproduct of a failed experiment to research a cure for malaria) and Cornflakes (in the 1890's, Will K. Kellogg accidentally left some corn bread dough sitting out for several hours, and upon finding the flaky dough, he decided to bake it anyway). Not immensely important (no more so than potato chips/ crisps anyway), but still, potentially worthy of being divergences in an ATL.
that was also on the list of accidental discoveries, but i'm disregarding that one for nowDoes the fact that Columbus was looking for Asia, rather than for a new continent, count?
that in and of itself is good for a POD, since Mesoamericans figure into the larger part of my ASB ATLThe Olmecs developed their own techniques and processes to cure rubber a few thousand years earlier.
strike that one from the list, thenPlay-Doh wasn't an accident, a kindergarten teacher noticed that their wall-paper cleaner, which was cheap due to fireplaces being replaced with furnaces, was mold able and brought a bucket of it to class to be played with. She sent a letter to the company and they colored it and everything.