Best thing since the frisbee.

Invented in 1941 by Swiss engineer George de Mestral, Velcro hook and loop fasteners officially turn 50 today. It took a few years (over 15 actually) to work out the idea and convince people of the advantages of the weird little strips that sounded like fabric tearing when you pulled them apart.

So the story goes, de Mestral became curious over how burrs stayed stuck to his trousers and dogs fur after a walk. He has a close look at them and discovered the "hook" part of the invention: thousands of tiny little hooks that latched onto fabric.

The hard part, and it was monstrously hard, was developing the two parts system out of commercial fabrics, AND, figuring out a way to mass produce the stuff. He toiled over a decade on this. He got it squared away and by 1951 he has his first patent. He patented it in over a dozen countries (expecting a huge demand) and set up shop in 8 countries. He settled on Manchester, New Hampshire as his centre of operations and beginning in 1958 started to introduce the world to Velcro.

It didn't fly off the shelves at the start, people just weren't ready to trade buttons for Velcro. But the infant space industry found that this was the perfect fastener for it's new space suits. They just couldn't pass this kind marketing up.