Penicillin for millions of soldiers came from a rotten melon.

1928 · 1943 · apart: 15 years

In 1943 a lab in Peoria searching for the most productive mould found it on a mouldy cantaloupe from a local market, and its descendants went into mass production.

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The event

• Discovery of penicillin1928 · London. In September 1928 Alexander Fleming noticed that a mould in a Petri dish was killing bacteria. Penicillin, purified from it in the 1940s by Florey and Chain, became the first mass-produced antibiotic and saved millions of lives.

20th century

More amazing facts

• 1927 · 1952 The last wild European bison was killed in the Caucasus in 1927.
• 1927 The first feature-length talkie was mostly silent.
• 1927 · 1961 · 2000 The keeper of the pitch drop experiment waited 52 years to see a drop fall, and never did. John Mainstone once missed one by stepping out for tea, and in 2000 the camera failed in a thunderstorm.
• 1928 1928: Fleming came back from holiday to find a mould killing his bacteria, sliced bread went on sale for the first time, and Mickey Mouse made his public debut in Steamboat Willie.
• 1928 · 1943 The US once banned sliced bread.
• 1929 · 1956 To experiment on himself, a surgeon tricked a nurse.

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