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In 1920 Earle Dickson made the first Band-Aid at home for his wife Josephine. It sold only 3,000 dollars’ worth in its first year, then Boy Scouts got them free.

In 1937 Sylvan Goldman turned two folding chairs into the first shopping cart, and nobody would push it. So he paid people to push it around the store.

In 1941 George de Mestral came home from a walk with his dog covered in burrs. Under a microscope he saw tiny hooks, and years later he gave the world Velcro.

Left with 1,535 dollars and debts in 1883, Josephine Cochrane built the first practical dishwasher to save her family china. It won an award at the 1893 World’s Fair.

In 1903 Mary Anderson invented the windshield wiper after a snowy streetcar ride in New York. A company said it had no value; her patent ran out before every car had one.

In 1970, a year after the Moon landing, Bernard Sadow watched an airport worker push a wheeled platform and put wheels on suitcases. Stores first said no.

In 1817, after a year without a summer, Karl Drais rode two wooden wheels with no pedals out of Mannheim and gave the world the bicycle. He died penniless.

Wim Ouboter’s favourite sausage stand was too far to walk and too close to drive. So he built the folding Micro scooter, survived 500 copycats and kept inventing.

Alfred Marshall kept a painting of a poor working man above his fireplace and spent his life asking whether poverty has to exist. The true story of a life well lived.

On 27 October 1962 a Soviet submarine near Cuba prepared a nuclear torpedo. Three officers had to agree. Vasili Arkhipov said no.