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**ThreshingSword**

LoP Guest Wrote:

ThreshingSword Wrote:
This reminds me of that movie "Sliding Doors." Have you seen it, OP? I highly recommend it if not. What a difference a few seconds make.

Fittingly, Gweneth Paltrow, who starred in that movie, was involved in a real life chance meeting with and a total stranger, Lara Lundstrom Clarke, on Sept 11 2001 and probably saved Clarke. Both had been exercising that morning, Paltrow taking in an early yoga class, Clarke rollerblading along the Hudson. While Clarke was crossing in the middle of a West Village street in New York, Paltrow was driving in her silver Mercedes SUV. Suddenly, Clarke looked over and realized who was in the SUV. Clarke and Paltrow each stopped and the two of them exchanged greetings. This small delay made Clarke miss her train to the World Trade Center building 2, where she worked on the 77th floor. At the time Clarke recalled being excited to tell her coworkers who she had just seen. She caught the next train and stepped off the platform just in time to see the first plane fly into Tower One. “If I had made that train I would have been at my desk on the 77th floor of 2 World Trade Center,” Clarke said.

Oh wow! I haven't heard that one before. Great story!!!

**LoP Guest** lop guest User ID: 63476 01-17-2012 08:15 AM

More things that make you go hmmm...

Did assassins stopping for a sandwich lead to the successful killing of Franz Ferdinand which ultimately started the dominoes falling for WWI? Did The Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna's rejection of Adoph Hitler's art school application make all the difference? Was the Civil war won because of the decision of Confederate Stonewall Jackson to not write up individual orders but instead give entire copy of General Lee's battle plan to Daniel Harvey Hill. Hill who then wrapped 3 cigars in official orders and carelessly leave them on the ground in a box that were against all odds delivered into the hands of the Union General George McClellan?

http://www.cracked.com/article_17298_6-r...world.html

**LoP Guest** lop guest User ID: 63476 01-17-2012 09:08 AM

These are pertaining to happy accidents that led to discoveries.

Percy LeBaron Spencer had a candy bar in his pocket which melted when he was working on the magnetron. That was his ah-ha moment that started him down the path to the development of the microwave oven.

In a fit of rage, Charles Goodyear shaking his fist accidentally flung a piece of rubber on a stovetop and consequently noticed fire strengthened it. The Goodyear tire and rubber empire followed.

Edward Benedictus clumsily knocked a scientific flask on the ground but when it broke it didn't shatter. He then found out it previously had cellulose nitrate and the concept of safety glass was born.

Sir Alexander Fleming, a slob, did not clean the dirty plates in his lab one fateful holiday and came back to find mold which he later noticed killed bacteria. Hello Penicillin. All science needed was a man to come along who was so filthy that he actually would discover a form of filth that could kill other filth. Millions of lives were saved.

http://www.cracked.com/article_17134_5-a...world.html