Can You Guess the Original Purpose of These Inventions?

The first paintball gun wasn’t intended to be used for competition. Instead, it was a tool for loggers to mark trees and for cattle ranchers to mark cattle as they rode by on horseback. The first official paintball game took place on June 7, 1981, when sporting goods retailer Bob Gurnsey incorporated the guns into a game of capture the flag.

Before it was used to treat impotence, Viagra was developed for people with hypertension. Though it failed to achieve its original purpose, the company pivoted and patented the drug as a sexual remedy. After being approved by the FDA in 1998, the extremely popular drug racked up a billion dollars in sales during its first year on the market.

Hawaiian Punch was invented back in 1934 as a sweet syrup with a tropical flavor that could be poured over sundaes, just like chocolate or strawberry syrup. Originally called "Leo's Hawaiian Punch," the syrup was sold to ice cream parlors, whose customers soon discovered that the syrup could be mixed with water to create a delicious, drinkable liquid.

Yes, as frightening as it sounds, the chainsaw was invented to help deliver children. In the 18th century, if a baby was breech or was trapped in the birth canal, doctors would have to cut through the pelvis to deliver the child. Scottish surgeons John Aitken and James Jeffray found that regular knives were too slow, so they created a hand-cranked chainsaw to help.

While studying at the Royal College of Chemistry in 1856, chemist William Perkin was working on a method to artificially produce quinine, the only treatment for malaria at that time. During one of his experiments, he accidentally created a lustrous purple hue, which he used to stain a piece of cloth, creating the color mauve and modern synthetic dyes in one fell swoop.

TNT was developed in 1863 by German chemist Joseph Wilbrand, who used it as a yellow dye. It was known to have explosive potential, but it was difficult to detonate and less powerful than alternatives. Eventually, the explosive was adopted by the German armed forces and became the weapon of war and construction tool that it is today.

On the front lines of Napoleon's army, artillery officer Charles Barbier had a firsthand look at the cost of war. To solve the problem of covert communication in the dark, he created an early version of the Braille writing system. Though it was never widely used due to its complexity, Barbier later adapted it for the blind, where a student named Louis Braille made it the system it is today.

Today, they're a bold fashion statement that adds height, but almost 1,000 years ago, high heels were first invented for warfare. Soldiers of the Samanid Empire in ancient Persia discovered that high-heeled shoes helped keep them stable while they were riding their horses, allowing their feet to stay put in stirrups while using a bow and arrow.

In 1957, Alfred Fielding and Marc Chavannes combined two pieces of plastic shower curtain with a heat-sealing machine and filled them with air bubbles. Their goal was to create a textured, 3D wallpaper that would appeal to the Beat generation. No one really liked it on their walls, but the product would eventually become a staple of the packaging industry.

The Slinky was invented by accident. In 1943, engineer Richard James was trying to create springs that could keep sensitive ship equipment steady when he bumped into a shelf and knocked some samples down. To his amazement, the springs "walked" off the shelf instead of falling. James took the sample to his wife, Betty, and together they worked to turn his creation into the next big novelty toy.

After sustaining a wound during the Civil War, Georgia pharmacist John Pemberton became addicted to morphine. In order to wean off the drug, he tried drinks that contained coca (the source of cocaine), which was less addictive. He created a recipe dubbed "Pemberton's French Wine Coca." After temperance legislation in 1886, Pemberton made his drink alcohol-free and marketed it as a tonic, and Coca-Cola was born.

In 1924, Kleenex was originally designed as cold cream and makeup remover to wipe a person's face after a long day, hence the "Kleen" part of the name. Five years later, the company's head researcher had hay fever and started using the product in place of his handkerchief. Kleenex then realized its untapped potential, and today, the name is synonymous with disposable tissues.

While it might not be as catchy as "7UP," the soda's original name is certainly more descriptive. The product originally included the ingredient lithium citrate (hence its use of the word "lithiated"), which was used to treat patients with bipolar disorder. Eventually, the drink was dismissed as a viable mental health treatment, dropped the added lithium from its formula, and changed its name to 7UP.

Listerine was originally invented as a surgical antiseptic in the 1880s, but over the years it was advertised as a jack-of-all-trades product. Some advertisements touted its uses as a foot cleaner, floor scrubbing liquid, and even a treatment for gonorrhea. Eventually, in the 1920s, Listerine pivoted toward becoming a mouthwash brand and even coined the word "halitosis" to define bad breath.

Initially, graham crackers were marketed toward people, especially teenagers, as a way of ridding them of their carnal urges. Evangelical minister Sylvester Graham created the bland, crumbly treat as something to consume to quell one’s sexual desire. The crackers were part of a larger Graham diet, which featured many unseasoned grainy foods and prohibited tobacco and alcohol.

In the late 1800s, a man named William Russell Frisbie purchased a bakery and named it after himself, and it grew into a massive company by 1940. At that time, the bakery churned out up to 200,000 pies each day, all made in the company's trademark pie tins. These tins doubled as throwing discs, and in 1957, the toy company Wham-O purchased a similar product and borrowed the Frisbie name, changing just one letter for the name of its toy.

In 1859, chemist Robert Chesebrough traveled to the small oil town of Titusville, Pennsylvania, and discovered that workers had a strange relationship with something they called "rod wax." The substance would clog rigs and cause all sorts of problems, but it was also used to treat cuts and scrapes received on the job. Chesebrough studied the petroleum jelly and patented it in 1865, selling it as Vaseline a few years later.

Pocket watches may largely be a thing of the past, but the tiny pants pocket where they were once stored remains a fixture of fashion. When Levi's first came to market in 1879, men could place their pocket watches safely in their blue jeans, giving them easy access to the time. Nowadays, the pocket is more commonly used to hold coins and keys.

First described in an 1822 publication of British prison rules, William Cubitt's invention of the "Tread-Wheel" was presented as a way for prisoners to put in an honest day's labor. The exercise device’s ancestor was hooked up to a grain mill, so when prisoners walked on it, they would grind grain, much in the same way as a water wheel.

Founded in 1912, Kutol quickly rose to become the world's largest manufacturer of wallpaper cleaner with their malleable, clay-like compound that refreshed walls damaged by coal soot. By the 1950s, however, coal was going out of use, jeopardizing their company. Kutol read an article about how their product had been used by children in modeling projects. The company ran with it and Play-Doh was born.