A very classic example.
Pretty much every report on Sir Alexander Fleming's discovery of penicillin notes
that it was a serendipitous discovery. Certainly there was a healthy dose of luck
involved, although as Time
Magazine's profile on Fleming correctly notes, much more than "simple"
serendipity was involved. What's more, though the "original" discovery
was perhaps the result of one person's lightbulb moment, making penicillin into
a useful medicine involved numerous scientists, each of whom contributed an additional
layer of research, little of which relied on serendipity.
Many events, of course, took place on September 30. Some of these have even been
recorded and remembered, and become, at least more or less, noteworthy. Many of
these events (as is, sadly, probably true for just about any day) are war-related
- probably because when we find "nothing eventful happened today" written
in a diary, we rather logically assume that that "nothing" isn't particularly
noteworthy, while battles are precisely the sort of item that does get recorded.
And as to the fact that it was on this day, in 1928, that Fleming made his discovery
of penicillin, pleasing as it may be to think so, I doubt that it's particularly
serendipitous that a Boidem column that deals with serendipity was also uploaded
on this same date.
Go to: Now what are the odds on that happening?