Mauveine

William Henry Perkin's failed quinine, London, 1856 Perkin was 18 and on Easter vacation from the Royal College of Chemistry when he tried to make quinine, the malaria drug, from chemicals derived from coal tar. He failed, but one product was a purple substance, and instead of discarding it he tested it as a dye. Mauveine became the first commercialized synthetic dye, and by 1857 he had opened a factory at Greenford Green outside London. The bigger consequence was what came next: synthetic dyes formed the basis of a new chemical industry and eventually the pharmaceutical industry too, which makes this teenage failure one of the most productive in history.